It was a tale of two concerts last night as Pumpkinland came to the Phoenix Concert Theatre with both quiet and loud versions of The Smashing Pumpkins.
The band's latest album, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, is divided into two parts - Dawn To Dusk and Twilight To Starlight. So it was appropriate for the hot Chicago foursome to divide their highly-anticipated show into acoustic (their first ever) and electric sets.
And the 1,100 fans crowded into the small theatre for the first of two Toronto gigs that kick off a North American tour couldn't have been more pleased.
Except maybe if the first set had been plugged in too.
The Pumpkins followers came to rock but had to wait awhile to do so. And after hours of standing in the biting cold outside, you couldn't really blame them for wanting to warm up sooner rather than later.
But you've also got to give Billy Corgan and company, currently North America's hottest alternative rock group, major points for trying to do something radical.
You couldn't have had two more different concert experiences - to the extreme - from the first to the second set.
Singer-songwriter-guitarist Corgan, an imposing 6-foot-4 figure with a shaved head, spent the first 40 minutes mostly sitting down and barely speaking to the audience while playing his acoustic guitar.
Despite endless cries of "Billy!" from the crowd, the usually talkative Corgan remained almost eerily sedate.
Except once when he was coughing between songs: "I'm dying, so this is our last show," he joked. He was flanked by bleached-blonde bassist D'arcy, elegantly dressed in an ivory satin floor-length dress, and guitarist James Iha. Both were seated. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, meanwhile, was practically invisible behind his drum kit. But that didn't stop the overwhelming sound of the rhythm section from drowning out the acoustic guitar one too many times.
By round two, though, and after a 20-minute intermission, Corgan had fully transformed into alterno-rock god, in his now trademark Zero T-shirt and shiny silver pants.
Wailing away on a screaming electric guitar and actually spitting on stage after a rousing rendition of the Pumpkins' latest hit, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Corgan was back as the Lollapalooza headliner we all know and love.
Corgan actually got the crowd singing along to Disarm, the Pumpkins' hit from their 1993 release, Siamese Dream.
To their credit, the Pumpkins had tried to ensure that teenagers, and not scalpers, got tickets to their Toronto dates. A surprise concert announcement on CFNY two weeks ago saw the $30 tickets go on sale two hours later and sell out in about the same amount of time. (There were reports, however, of single scalper tickets going for $250 last night.)
After tonight's show, the Pumpkins head to Washington, D.C., for two nights, then on to New York City for three nights, before heading off to more surprise dates in Brazil, Japan and Australia.