Billy Corgan has addressed his recent comments about not wanting to play Smashing Pumpkins hits by sharing a recent setlist that is bursting with the band’s biggest songs.
The frontman recently spoke to Kerrang!, where he discussed his band’s UK tour dates, which wrapped up in Cardiff last night (June 14).
“I don’t play any songs I don’t want to play,” he said. “I don’t care if they’re a classic or not, if I don’t want to play it, I just don’t play it. I don’t put that on the audience like, ‘Well, I’ve got to play this one for you.’ I think that’s kind of cheese.”
Corgan has now followed up on the comments, which were reported widely. “I want to address the elephant (rhinoceros) in the room – about [Smashing Pumpkins] not playing the hits or fan favorites,” he wrote on Instagram.
“Just going to leave this here – here is SP not playing the hits in Glasgow at @ovohydro.
Does anyone know any songs on this playlist?” he joked.
The setlist in question includes most of the band’s best-known tracks, including ‘1979’, ‘Disarm’, ‘Tonight, Tonight’, ‘Today’ and ‘Cherub Rock’.
“Super deep cuts/not fan favorites,” Corgan added dryly. “But thank you Glasgow for being absolutely aff yer HEIDS last night. Spectacular audience. Will show more of SP not playing hits/fan favourites as the tour goes on!”
The band now head to Europe for a lengthy run of dates, starting in Paris on June 16 and eventually concluding in Athens on July 16.
At the opening show of the tour in Birmingham last week, which was the band’s first gig with new guitarist Kiki Wong, they played a similarly hit-heavy setlist, as well as a cover of U2’s ‘Zoo Station’.
In other Corgan news, the singer recently praised Taylor Swift and defended the length of her latest album ‘The Tortured Poets Department’. In the discussion, the frontman explained that he’s baffled that people complain about artists releasing long albums, and said that he faced a similar issue with Smashing Pumpkins’ latest LP ‘ATUM’, which was released in three parts with a total of 33 songs.
‘ATUM’ scored a four-star review, with Damian Jones writing for NME: “As albums go, ‘ATUM’ is an ambitious body of work and does ask a lot of its audience. But there’s also plenty on here to please any diehard Pumpkins fan.”
Additionally, Corgan announced the news in February that he would be releasing a new unscripted series called Adventures In Carnyland. The show will reportedly focus on his involvement in wrestling – with the musician serving as the president of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) since 2017 – and the trailer dropped last month.