Smashing Pumpkins @ Carling Academy, 22 Aug

"Billy, pull yer heid oot yer erse!" snaps a voice from the back of the Academy. "But I don't understand Scottish," Corgan retorts in robotic monotone, pausing for breath in-between bouts of pretend sobbing and cackling. It's an understatement to say that the Pumpkins have never shied away from a bit of theatre but tonight there are moments that descend into pure pantomime. Oozing standoffish detachment from the start, Corgan's crew nevertheless lay down goosebump inducing renditions of Soma, Drown, 1979 and Tonight, Tonight to lift the crowd up high before a by-the-numbers crack at Bullet with Butterfly Wings and a stadium rock wankathon during Heavy Metal Machine returns it to the earth with an almost cruel, meteoric velocity. "Rock is dead!" claimed Corgan almost ten years ago, but that doesn't stop him from striking terror into the occasion with an Eddie Van Halen inspired riff odyssey. Never mind yer erse Billy, give James Iha a bell. [Dave Kerr]