SMASHING PUMPKINS at TARGET CENTER

After Grant Lee Buffalo, the crowd, filling a sold-out Target Center, settled to a low buzz until the playback of "Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness" flowed from the PA system. The consequent roar of applause and cheering was soon drowned by a massive wall of noise as the superstars of alternative rock started off with three rocking numbers from the CD of the same name, pouring out all their rage (but they're still just rats in the cage. I'm sorry, I just had to include that...) before relenting.

The concert was fairly straightforward from there, not exceptional, but delivering the goods. The audience was most engaged when Corgan reminisced about the band's humble beginnings, when they played at 7th Street Entry and wrote a song that was played for the first time in that little locale. The song, of course, was "Today", which sent the crowd into a frenzy at Target Center.

The experimental elements that had been playing in the peripheries throughout the concert were finally given free rein in the third (!) and last encore. Playing with the limits of what most concert goers can take of weirdness, they played four compositions (I wouldn't call them songs, at least not in the traditional sense of the word) that is best described as a combination of Motorpsycho, Pink Floyd, and The Doors, with numbing noise a la Deathprod, psychedelic guitarwork and Doomsday monologue. It was all illustrated with unsettling clips on the background screen; some of the things I could recognize (it was masked by distortions and strange colors) were mice in treadmills, Miss America pageants, and educational films from the 1950s on how to survive nuclear attacks.

It all amounted to a manifestation of nineties angst and pessimism, at least that's how I interpreted it: a decadent message stating that the world is going to the dogs, and whatever your dreams and hopes are, they don't mean anything because everything has already been said and done. Still, you should follow your dreams, not to obtain some important goal (those do not exist), but as a hedonistic goal in themselves.

On the other hand, ambiguities and contradictions left me with the feeling that it was all ironic, as if it all were just A Major Mindfuck, and we were idiots for letting a mere rockstar tell us what life is and how to live ours. You never can tell with Billy Corgan... At this point, it ceased being a concert, and became a work of art.