Billy Corgan Echoes of Mellon Collie with Grungy Night at the TLA

June 16, 2025 – It’s 8:55 PM on a humid Philadelphia summer night, just before an impending heatwave the TLA buzzes like a time machine about to launch. Old flannel buried in closets resurfaced, and hearts were beating in sync with collective memory. Billy Corgan takes the stage for his A Return to Zero tour, and suddenly it’s 1995 again with the smell of sweat and aged angst in the air.

Corgan opens with the eerie pre‑recorded Le Deux Machina, a haunting reminder that we’re not at a Smashing Pumpkins reunion. One after another, deep-cut gems from the Mellon Collie era flow, Glass’ Theme, Heavy Metal Machine, Where Boys Fear to Tread, Pentagrams, and even The Crying Tree of Mercury. The setlist reads like a love letter to your long-lost alt-rock dreams.

There’s magic in the obscure. When he hits Porcelina of the Vast Oceans, the crowd sways slow as the tide, drenched in recollection. Glass and the Ghost Children delivers a seven-minute spiritual transcendence.

Around me, fans weren’t just mouthing words, they were exorcising ghosts. One guy in a faded Zero shirt held his lighter overhead like it was a relic from the Lollapalooza ‘94 tour. Another woman, tears streaming, whispered every lyric of The Crying Tree like it was the gospel. You could feel it..

Mid-set, the unexpected, Nancy Sinatra’s You Only Live Twice. A tongue-in-cheek cover sure, but performed with harmless irony, it lands like a wink from Billy, “Yeah, I’m still full of surprises.” Then they rip into 999, swelling tension, and punch it all open with Bullet With Butterfly Wings. That iconic refrain “Despite all my rage…” rattles rigging and every soul inside.

And then Muzzle. The lyrics “prayer, schismatic, contaminated” echo off brick walls. It’s an emotional archaeology scraping away at the decades to reveal a raw wound and scar tissue. A guy near the back screamed, “This one saved my life in ‘97!” No one questioned it.

At the 15th song, 1979, the nostalgic nucleus of the night. Corgan’s own kids join mid-stage dance. Watching kids dancing to a song I first heard when I was about their age hits like bittersweet déjà vu. If nostalgia had a face, it’s that family portrait in motion.

Someone shouted, “We were the weird kids! This was our anthem!” and the whole back half of the room cheered in solidarity. These weren’t fair-weather fans, they were lifers. Grunge survivors. Sonic veterans with battle scars in the shape of mixtapes and Doc Martens.

Tonight, Tonight arrives, piano-drenched and acoustic. A hush falls; the crowd sings every line. It’s a moment that transcends era or genre: pure, unabashed unity. Later, closing songs Bodies and The Aeroplane Flies High tear the final riffs through Philly’s rafters.

Encore: the beast awakens again with Zero, that defiant anthem (“Emptiness is loneliness…”) a perfect rally cry for kids of the 90s still aching with defiance. Then, The Everlasting Gaze pours molten energy into closing hours. The pit, once restrained, fully ignites, and it’s beautiful chaos.

Local outlet and our good friends over at Digital Noise Magazine called the night “a blend of nostalgia & new energy” and that’s exactly it. Corgan’s voice cracked just enough to remind us he’s lived, aged, but the fire still refuses to dim.

As the final notes dissolved and the house lights flickered on, no one rushed for the exits. Fans lingered, stunned and grinning, trading bootleg-era stories and passing around phone recordings like sacred text. One dude near the exit muttered, “I think I just saw my teenage self in the front row”, that made me laugh.

I left the TLA feeling altered, older, sure. But also reconnected to that raw, ragged spark that made me fall for rock & rebellion. That night Billy Corgan rewrote my own personal soundtrack, live.

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