Billy Corgan isn’t very well. In fact, some might say he’s sick. This time, however, it’s not waves of self-doubt and unresolved matriarchal issues he’s struck down with ,it’s the more physical afflictions of common flu. And where better to have flu than Stockholm, a place where the temperature is inversely proportional to the laughable cost of living.
As the first date on a world tour during arguably the most turbulent point in the Pumpkins’ ten-year history, it’s a 1500-seater baptism of ice not only for walking virus Corgan, but for recently appointed manager Sharon ‘Wife of Ozzy’ Osbourne and two of her new charges. First up there’s Jimmy Chamberlin the former drug buddy of late keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin, then there’s D’Arcy Wretzky’s replacement Melissa Auf Der Maur, former Hole bass player. D’Arcy left to launch a film career last Septermber after completing work on new album ‘MACHINA/the machines of God’. Chamberlin’s renewed presence in - to quote Corgan - ‘ the fearsome foursome’ after being sacked four years ago marks a back-to-basics move for the Pumpkins. Gone from the new album are the reformed beats and open heart surgery of previous album ‘Adore’ and in comes a renewed willingness to follow in their own footsteps, only this time with a far heavier boot.
’When Jimmy left we weren’t that [band] anymore,’ Corgan said last August of the effect the drummer’s entry into rehab had on the band, ‘so we didn’t try to be. Then Jimmy comes back, and we literally went right back to where we left off.’
However, one listen to ‘Machina: and it’s clear that a desire to return to their rock roots hasn’t meant a devaluing of the Pumpkins’ songwriting pound. While ‘Adore’ was defiantly a studio album with cut-and-paste drum loops and digital ambition, the return of Chamberlin has meant a rediscovery of shirt-grabbing hooks an tracks of undeniable stamina.
Given the importance of the gig, it’s inevitable that the band are late arriving on stage. As they wait, the Swedish crowd busy themselves by playing note-perfect air guitar to the Euro-prog piped into the smoke and drink-free hall.
Finally, after Yngwie Malmsteen’s third track is mercifully faded out, the lights dim to almost complete darkness and four silhouettes take up their positions. Wordlessly, Corgan signals to Chamberlin to begin playing the drumming equivalent of a death march. After what seems like an age of ramdom guitar noises and monotone bass, the squalling instrumental is cut and a new track ‘The Everlasting Gaze’ explodes in a fury of piercing halogen lights.
In the space of a few seconds, the Pumpkins deliver an opening that erases any lingering doubts about the new-old direction. Superfast metallic riffs compete with a bassline so loud it vibrates the stone flooring.
Completely motionless save for his hands, Billy Corgan is oblivious to the shards of light bouncing off his freshly shaven pate while, to his right, the sequin-gowned Auf Der Maur gets with the programme and stays stock still. While James Iha sports the look of a man who’s barely awake, Chamberlin is having a ball, hitting the snare so hard it has to be re-skinned the moment the song ends.
’Aaaaargheeeeeeeii!’ goes Billy’s first piece of between-song banter, a naked, gutteral scream intended either to say hello in Corgan-ese or clear his sinuses. Whatever, the curiously polite Swedes cheer anyway, hoping for something a little more intelligible and pain-free. But they fail to receive it with ‘Machina’s’ most doom-laden and cynical track ‘Heavy Metal Machine’. ’If I was dead, would my records sell?’ ponders Billy over the supremely dark thrash before arching his back and letting fly with ’Let me die rock and roll/Let me die to save my soul’ . It’s clear a decade of platinum records hasn’t weakened Corgan’s penchant for self-hatred.
’Thank you’, says Billy once he’s got the final ’Let me die’ out of his system. ‘We’re now going to do a song featuring our new drummer Frank Mercury’, he continues without explanation, then makes up for successfully confusing an entire venue by strumming in ‘Tonight Tonight’.
Despite his best efforts, it quickly becomes apparent that Billy’s flu symptoms (runny nose, aching muscles, existential despair) are taking a firmer grip and the gig, like Billy, takes a turn for the worse. After half an hour of lukewarm crawls through tracks like ‘Cherub Rock’ and ’Ava Adore’, he makes an uncharacteristically sweet announcement. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak any Swedish’, he begins. ‘ But I’ve got that weird European flu ... Flu? You know flu?’ Before Billy makes any diplomatic faux pas, James Iha steps up and dryly remarks, ‘I think they get it’.
’My throat is kaputski’,Billy continues, ignoring James. ‘I don’t know how many more songs I can do. But this is the first show so we’ll see how many we can get through’. To grateful cheers he then counts in ‘I of The Mourning’, another track off ‘Machina’, infinitely more mellow yet still dabbling with themes of loneliness and death.
All the signs are that that’s it for the evening, a full hour before the show’s scheduled end. With a ‘thank you’ and a tiny wave from Auf Der Maur all four troop off, leaving little indication they are to return. However, a few minutes later a crew member positions four hight stools along the stage and James Iha bounds on, waving his arms for no discernible reason. ‘Do any of you want to dance? ‘ he asks an audience who’ve been unable to dance all night. ‘I like to dance. But I have to play guitar’. And with that illuminating nugget, everyone else, including Chamberlin, grabs an acoustic and jumps up to sit on the stools for a camp-fire rendition of ‘1979'.
It’s a pleasing scene, and one that lifts tonight back up to Event status. When, a couple of plugged-in songs later, Billy leads the crowd in a call-and-response scream session, he visibly thaws and even looks like he’s enjoying himself. But the Blackcurrant Lemsip is waiting, as is a private jet waiting to fly them direct to Copenhagen for tomorrow’s show.
Later that night a competent Swedish covers band called Sparx play in an all-night Irish theme pub in the city centre. After a few rousing U2 numbers and a game attempt at Mousse T’s ‘Horny’, they strike up the unmistakable opening bars of ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’. ‘This one’s for Billy, yeah’, cries the frontman. ‘Because he is cool’. And never a truer word has been spoken . Billy Corgan may have a contagious disease, but at least he’s taking something for it.