Dichotomy defined: The Smashing Pumpkins “Take My Breath Away” at Gunnersbury Park
LIVE REVIEW | THE SMASHING PUMPKINS w/ Rocket, The Unpeople, White Lies, Skunk Ananise | Gunnersbury Park, London | 10th August 2025 by Joe Fidler
Trading pumpkin patches for public parks, The Smashing Pumpkins teared up Gunnersbury Park last Sunday, in a night where nostalgia seeped classics met new age smash hits. The spectacle followed The Libertines headline gig the night prior, with gigs such as these acting as the sole income source for the upkeep of the park and museum by Gunnersbury Park CIC, after support from Hounslow and Ealing councils have been reduced. In that sense, Gunnersbury Park is the perfect venue for the Pumpkins, a band who has spent its entire existence in loud condemnation of systems such as those oppressing venues like Gunnersbury.
Considered as one of the driving forces behind the explosion of alternative rock in the 90s, the Pumpkins sprouted their first roots in Chicago, Illinois, where frontman Billy Corgan met guitarist James Iha while working in a record store. Unlike many of their contemporaries at the time, most of whom originated or drew from the Seattle grunge scene, the Pumpkins painted from a more eclectic pallet, ranging from shoe gaze all the way to heavy metal, resulting in a discography spanning 13 albums over 3 decades. Due to dysfunction and recurrent internal issues, the lineup has chopped and changed over the years, the band currently consists of the core trio, Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, with guitarist Kiki Wong joining in 2024. With the potent ‘Aghori Mhori Mei’, the most recent of their 13 albums, hitting the needle in 2024, and the band’s cult classic ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ turning 30 this year, the show acts as a coming together between the old and the new. Corgan remains prolific three decades into his rock journey, with his progressive musical vision continuing to take rein over the sound of the band to date, the Pumpkins prove they really are the same old rats in the same old cage.
Preempting the Pumpkins, was a conveyer belt of rock, all clearly influenced by the headline act in some way. Armed with a profound naivety, the young LA based Rocket kicked off the show, soaked in nineties nostalgia, they provided a casual fitting of bread and butter rock ’n’ roll. Next was a course of monstrous moshing. Unforgiving. Unforgettable. The Unpeople are a band to keep a close eye on in the future. Seeping optimism, the only thing louder than the music was the bands personality, seeming almost like a modern incarnation of the Pumpkins themselves. White Lies followed offering a slightly softer sound, and much needed break from the mosh pits prior. As an appetiser to the Pumpkins, they gave a slight taste of what was to come, the depressive contemplation of death within the lyrics paired with the lighter melodic symphony that backed them. What could be more Pumpkin-esque? As White Lies said ‘Farewell To The Fairground’, in came the terrifying Skunk Ananise. Taking experimentalism to the next level, it’s difficult to describe the landscape of their sound. However, they’re just as political as ever, distinguishing what it means to relish the responsibility of a musician to speak out against injustices. They showcase that, ‘Yes Its F*cking Political’. All in all it felt like the celebration of the influence of The Smashing Pumpkins, bands and fans alike varying age, ethnicity and background, all united by one love. The Smashing Pumpkins.
From the get go the band carried themselves with an air of class, entering the stage in silence they seemed otherworldly, almost intangible. Corgan stood, brooding, a dichotomous caricature of a rockstar, his extravagant garments contrasting heavily with the humble genius that seemed to radiate from the man. This dichotomy acted as a heartbeat for the performance, oscillating between softer more intimate moments like their heart wrenching rendition of ‘Mayonaise’, to screeching headbangers such as ‘Heavy Metal Machine’, the night really seemed like a complete sweep of the Pumpkins lustrous sonic landscape. Shattering the silence, the band lurched straight into action from the beastly cacophony that is ‘Glass’ Theme’, the cogs of this well oiled heavy metal machine continued to churn as the band bridged the past with the present with a palpable performance of ‘Pentagrams’. This band were not merely performing, going through the motions in a rut of out of date rock, Smashing Pumpkins are still very much alive.
Three songs deep and the whiplash was already rife. Yet, Corgan stood before me, 40 years my senior, and seemed completely unfazed by the whole affair, I suppose he knew what was to come. The first jangled chords of the tragically beautiful ‘Today’ swept across the 190 acre park, Corgans’ searing vocals pierced through the noise in a crescendo of hope and despair. A song that was written in the depths of Corgans’ depression, about his contemplation of suicide, yet still evokes an almost childlike joy, is just the kind of duality of which defines this band. Luckily for us, Corgan chose “another kind of death, which is rock ‘n’ roll”, spearing no straggler the band went back-to-back with cult classics, soaring seamlessly into the iconoclastic ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’. Corgan and crew, puppet masters to the onslaught before them, wielded nostalgia as if it were the gun that fired the butterfly bullet itself, the crowd surged with an angst of which sub-seeded the generational split within the crowd.
Yet, the nostalgia didn’t stop there, with the dreamy melancholy of ‘1979’ being the next of the cult classics to come. Sprawled in Cogan’s adolescence, speaking on coming-of-age and the uncertainty surrounding it, the song seemed to hit a different chord coming from the middle aged man before me. Draped in what looks to be a 70s style Japanese robe, the weight of the genius that seemed to plague his youth lifted from his shoulders. Fans lapped up every second, in awe at the sheer beauty of the performance on show. It really did feel like a seminal moment. Next was what felt like a Broadway showing of rock n’roll, an orchestral cataclysm spanning out 9 minutes with their jaw dropping rendition of ‘Porcelina of the Vast Oceans’. In a performance fit for a man who once described himself as a “sociological astronaut”, Corgan gave an ethereal guitar solo, with a guitar of which looked like it had fell from the stars itself. Crashing back down to earth, showcasing again how the Pumpkins refuse to be put in a box, the band produce an admittedly odd but beautiful cover of ‘Take My Breath Away’. Skipping and giggling throughout, it really felt like a band just enjoying themselves, shredding the masquerade that seems to come hand in hand with being lauded as rock gods. For me it epitomised Corgan as a man, for a brief moment I didn’t feel as though I was being hailed by the presence of some mystical, transcendental rock star. Instead it almost felt as though I was sitting and having a coffee with him. After our short detour back to reality the band amped it up , going back-to-back yet again, with the cinematic masterpiece of ‘Disarm’, of which sounds as though its swiped straight from a movie soundtrack, leading into yet another masterpiece in ‘Tonight, Tonight’. The tight rhythm section, shimmering guitars, and imperfectly perfect vocals surged on throughout the night, never failing to provide emotional punch after emotional punch, fans really took a battering. In a blaze of glory, the band closed off with the inferno that is the ‘Everlasting Gaze’, in a performance that seemed to last an eternity.
Corgan, contradictory as ever, displayed what it truly means to be rock star. Slightly strange? Maybe, but I wouldn’t take them any other way. Cultivating a community, backed by a mass of misfits, The Smashing Pumpkins stunk a stench of authenticity, providing a safe-haven for all those that feel they don’t belong. From front to back the night was a soaring, sometimes tear-jerking but ultimately triumphant reminder as to why the band still matter.
