By Christopher David<\/p>\n
It would be easy to start the recap of Thursday\u2019s barnstorming show at Tinley Park with some sort of schmaltzy nostalgia language referring to the \u201890s.\u00a0 But that would be lazy, and it would do a great disservice to Noel Gallagher, Billy Corgan, and the members of both the High Flying Birds and The Smashing Pumpkins.\u00a0 Thursday\u2019s show was a transcendent display of two bands in top form that now fully exist outside of the generation in which they came to popularity.<\/p>\n
As far a cry from Oasis as one could imagine while still retaining the hotspots of his pop roots, Noel Gallagher\u2019s High Flying Birds dabbled in psychedelia and soul for the first half of the set, which saw the captivating drone-riff of \u201cIt\u2019s A Beautiful World\u201d and the funky \u201cKeep On Reaching\u201d show the crowd just how deep Gallagher\u2019s box of tricks actually goes.\u00a0 Leading with five tracks from 2017\u2019s Who Built the Moon<\/em>, the second half of the set went full-Oasis, with singalong after singalong; indeed, any band would be lucky to have \u201cWonderwall,\u201d \u201cStop Crying Your Heart Out,\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Look Back in Anger\u201d in its catalog.\u00a0 The reach of Gallagher\u2019s newest outfit was perhaps best showcased on the stomping \u201cHoly Mountain,\u201d which saw a horn section accompanying Beach Boy-style \u2018woo-ooos\u2019 behind the kind of driving melody Gallagher can so effortlessly craft; it\u2019s a song that would fit on any Oasis album with a different arrangement, but as it is, there was so much more that it was refreshing to see the way in which he clearly set out to shatter the conventions of anyone expecting the obvious.\u00a0 In a way, the co-headlining outing of the summer made even more sense within five minutes of Noel and the Birds taking the stage.<\/p>\n Because when it comes to shattering convention, is there anyone more up to the job than Billy Corgan?<\/p>\n The Smashing Pumpkins took a brightly lit stage with one of the most jaw-dropping backdrops in recent memory, as three rainbow colored, inflatable matryoshka dolls loomed over the band, providing a visual centerpiece to the Pumpkins\u2019 set that was a perfect balance of new, old, and rare.\u00a0 The nesting dolls were a perfect symbol for Corgan & Co.\u2019s music, which remains layered and deep in a way that none of their peers ever came close to.\u00a0 The hits sounded fresh and playful, and Corgan exchanged smiles all night with guitarists Jeff Schroeder and James Iha, who traded plenty of licks on \u201cSolara,\u201d the electro-pulse of \u201cEye,\u201d and the blazing \u201cSuperchrist,\u201d a deep cut if ever there was one.\u00a0 \u201cTiberius,\u201d the opener from 2014\u2019s overlooked Monument to an Elegy<\/em>, was a vibrant dose of energy leading into \u201cG.L.O.W.,\u201d another overlooked gem from the late 2000s (a period of untethered creativity for Corgan that produced some of his best work).\u00a0 It\u2019s clear since last year\u2019s Shiny and Oh So Bright tour that saw the official reunion of Corgan, Iha, and Chamberlin that the band has been on a creative tear that both celebrates the past and acknowledges the need to push forward.\u00a0 A full-band reworking of James Taylor\u2019s \u201cFire & Rain\u201d was poignant and sobering, and the Pink Floyd coda to the rarely played \u201cBlue Skies Bring Tears\u201d was right at home before they engaged the crowd in a choral singalong of \u201cCherub Rock,\u201d which was followed by perhaps the night\u2019s biggest shocker: the Sabbath-crunch of \u201cThe Aeroplane Flies High,\u201d which should have satisfied any die-hard from here all the way back to 1995.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re thirty-one years and still going strong, thanks to you,\u201d Corgan smiled; it was a fitting testament to the dedication of their fanbase, but it also served as a reminder as to how Corgan\u2019s musical vision has carried The Smashing Pumpkins through multiple iterations and into the space they now occupy: both of their time and completely timeless, a band that can effortlessly bring tears and incinerate all at the same time.<\/p>\n Noel Gallagher\u2019s High Flying Birds – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, IL, August 15, 2019 (setlist)<\/strong><\/p>\n Fort Knox<\/p>\n Holy Mountain<\/p>\n Keep On Reaching<\/p>\n It\u2019s a Beautiful World<\/p>\n She Taught Me How to Fly<\/p>\n Black Star Dancing<\/p>\n This is the Place<\/p>\n Wonderwall<\/p>\n Little by Little<\/p>\n Stop Crying Your Heart Out<\/p>\n Don\u2019t Look Back in Anger<\/p>\n All You Need is Love (The Beatles)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Smashing Pumpkins – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, IL, August 15, 2019 (setlist)<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Today<\/p>\n Zero<\/p>\n Solara<\/p>\n Knights of Malta<\/p>\n Eye<\/p>\n Bullet With Butterfly Wings<\/p>\n Tiberius<\/p>\n G.L.O.W.<\/p>\n Disarm<\/p>\n Superchrist<\/p>\n Fire & Rain (James Taylor)<\/p>\n Ava Adore<\/p>\n 1979<\/p>\n Tonight, Tonight<\/p>\n Blue Skies Bring Tears<\/p>\n Cherub Rock<\/p>\n The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Christopher David It would be easy to start the recap of Thursday\u2019s barnstorming show at Tinley Park with some sort of schmaltzy nostalgia language referring to the \u201890s.\u00a0 But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}