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March 26, 2003 - Orpheum Theatre - Boston, MA, US Concert review by mike Siva - Zwan : Concert Reviews ZWAN Orpheum - Boston 3/27/03 I was well served at this show by being just a casual fan of the Smashing Pumpkins. This was my first live Billy Corgan experience and I had few expectations, and none for hearing any classic Pumpkins songs. I liked the guitar assault of Siamese Dream but was overwhelmed by the hype and popularity of Mellon Collie, so gave them up. An extra ticket for Billy Corgan's new band ZWAN came my way, as did a burned copy of their cd, Mary Star of the Sea. Repeated listenings to the disc in the days leading up to the show helped familiarize me with the new songs - mostly melodic, hard rock pop songs, with Corgan's signature guitar sound and distinctive voice. I'd call the sound NEOPSYHCHEDELIA. Gone are the doom and gloom of yesteryear, replaced here by a seemingly newfound spirituality. It's bright, it's colorful, and Corgan sounds like he's actually having FUN playing with these folks. I guess that this is some sort of supergroup (members of Slint, Chavez, and A Perfect Circle - bands I don't really know), along with Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. The album, though, was just a warm-up for the live show. My only expectation was that it was going to be loud. And it turned out to be perfectly loud - just enough to leave my ears slightly ringing by show's end. It was well-mixed with above-average separation between intruments - three guitars, expertly layered!! and if you listened carefully, you could hear exactly what each one was playing. ZWAN has a catalog of almost 100 new songs to choose from, but they played mostly from the newly released album. They snuck in at least one cover halfway through the show - the Beatles' Don't Let Me Down. The lights were good, the energy from the stage was high, and Corgan was unabashed in his commitment to these new songs and this new band. It was a mostly young crowd (I'm early 30s and was defitely among the older half), who en masse seemed not to know what to make of Corgan's new incarnation. Everyone stood, but hardly anyone was moving. No one seemed to be singing along. (This is typical of Boston club/theater shows, where audiences tend to have a "show me what you got" attitude "and if you're good enough by show's end I might boogie down.") Most had probably not yet heard the album. But even so, the live versions were certainly not carbon copies of the recorderd ones - songs were broken apart, reordered, and at least once, during the 14-minute title track, dare I say even jammed out. By the end of the 100-minute set the crowd really came alive, and in the spaces between the two encores, the roars of approval and appreciation were tremendous. I heard some grumbling by die-hard Pumpkins fans after the concert - "it was ok, not as good as a pumpkins show", "bring back the pumpkins", "not even one song from gish". But from where I stood, it was a fantastic show that went far beyond what I could have hoped for. Loud, sincere, high-energy, textured neopsychedelic pop. I'd go see this band again in a heartbeat. |
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