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As Billy Corgan and co announce a UK tour, Associate Editor (Reviews) Niall Doherty explains why it isn't easy to be a Smashing Pumpkins fan these days, and asks with just one founding member left whether or not he should break his vow never to see them live again and make a pilgrimage to Corgan's chapel this November.

There was a quick flash of excitement, and then the dull thud of reality. Because the news that Smashing Pumpkins have announced a UK tour - even writing it evokes the same speedy adrenaline rush followed by the same Oh... Bugger - is immediately tempered by the realisation that, with Billy Corgan now the remaining sole member, this isn't the Smashing Pumpkins anymore than the current line-up touring as Guns'n'Roses are Guns'n'Roses. You can see why it's so important to grip on to the name - or, as it's become, that brand. Under the 'Pumpkins moniker, they can do two nights at Brixton Academy that will probably sell out. Under his own name and playing the band's songs, Billy Corgan is looking at a couple of low level regional shows and maybe a London date at a more modest venue. Which would you go for?

Their last trips to the UK, to promote underrated reunion record Zeitgeist, still featured octopus-limbed original drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and, as long as he was in the band, I told myself, this was still the Pumpkins. As long as Jimmy's here, I thought, it's palatable. Anyway, I said, my internal monologue properly kicking into Pumpkins defence mode, a mode my external monologue had gotten used to over the years, they've always got a different line up every time I see them anyway. This, I asserted, is what they do.

I only saw the 'proper' Pumpkins line up - Corgan, guitarist James Iha, bassist D'Arcy and Chamberlin - once. It was at Wembley Arena on the Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness tour. My mum drove me and my mates up after school and it was phenomenal, even if I do remember my feet starting to ache as Silverfuck entered its 15th minute. The next time I saw them, Jimmy had been banished for his part in the overdose death of touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin - the two were out scoring heroin together before a show at New York's Madison Square Garden. Originally replaced by Filter drummer Matt Walker, soon the replacement was replaced and by the time they toured the stripped-down, elegant but overlong Adore album, sticksman-for-hire Kenny Aronoff was behind the kit, -an experienced session musician who was as bald as Corgan and wore Bono's sunglasses while drumming.
I missed Jimmy.
The next time I saw them, for their swansong tour, Aronoff was off too - all was forgiven and Jimmy was back. Except - there's a trend developing here - D'Arcy had left and former Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur was on four-string duties. And on it goes...

Keeping up with Smashing Pumpkins has been exhausting but until now, it was unquestionable responsibility.
Over the course of Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie..., two of the most exceptional rock records of the '90s, my Pumpkins devotion had been sealed. At that point, as a 13 year old enthralled by how Billy Corgan sounded like a spaced-out fairy but rocked with the ferocious intensity of a boxer in the ring, I had no idea of how it would be challenged.

However my allegiance first began to unravel, perhaps, with their headline slot at Reading Festival four years ago. It should've been a grand return to the scene where they triumphed in 1995, when they unveiled the scorching alt rock anthems that were to feature on Mellon Collie.... The contrast couldn't have been more marked, though; they did begin with an unreleased new song, but Superchrist was a dip in quality obvious to everyone except Billy.
When they did revisit the greats - and Today, Cherub Rock, Tonight Tonight, Zero, 1979 and Bullet With Butterfly Wings - they'd lost their devastating spark. Corgan, it seemed, had underestimated just how integral the tumultuous frisson between his former bandmates was to their sound. The Pumpkins aren't meant to get on.

With the news in March 2009 that Chamberlin had left again - this time of his own accord - it struck me with the thought that if three out of four members of one of my all time favourite bands were to pass me in the street, I wouldn't have a clue. I have no idea who they are. Coupled with the crushing disappointment of new material released online as part of the extensive Teargarden By Kaleidyscope project, I gave up and pretended to myself that they'd never got back together. I'd ignore the future and instead celebrate the Pumpkins as they should be - a fantastical rock band revolving around jaw-dropping riffs, supernaturally exhilarating drums and lyrics that sound like they've been written by a cross between David Icke and Enid Blyton.

And then this week they announce a new UK tour and I think to myself, Well, it's the Pumpkins... I've gotta give them one more chance. And I'll go. And I'll tell everyone it was amazing, that it doesn't matter that Billy is the only real member, and I'll repeat this process until the time that Billy Corgan himself isn't even in Smashing Pumpkins any more, replaced, like his bandmates, with younger, less able Pumpkins.

I am stuck in a bond with this band that I struck too long ago to break now. I guess this is what they mean by tough love.

12:04 PM | 07/09/2011