The Smashing Pumpkins played Lollapalooza in 1994 when the festival was still on tour. On Friday (July 31), they headlined it in their own backyard for the first time in 32 years, and brought three guests. Olivia Rodrigo, Yungblud and former bassist Melissa Auf der Maur each joined the set in Chicago’s Grant Park, Stereogum reports.
The set opened with “1979,” “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and “Today,” and then the guests came out one by one. Yungblud, a recent collaborator who featured the band on his song “Zombie,” sang “Luna” after his own set earlier in the day. It marked his return to the stage after canceling another festival for mental health reasons last month, per Stereogum.
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Olivia Rodrigo was the one fans had been tracking. A TikToker spotted her at O’Hare on Friday morning, and she sang “Thirty-Three” with Billy Corgan on acoustic guitar. It was only the second time the Pumpkins had played the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness single since 2018, the first being at their Lollapalooza aftershow at the Riviera on Wednesday, Stereogum noted. Auf der Maur, who recently announced her first new music in 16 years, closed on “The Everlasting Gaze,” as she did at the aftershow.
We just got a rain disco party,
Billy Corgan, Chicago Sun-Times
Corgan said it as a burst of rain hit the crowd during “Tonight, Tonight,” according to the Sun-Times, before he declared, “All right, back to the sorrow,” and launched into “Pentagrams.” The rain had a cost elsewhere on the bill: Lil Uzi Vert’s set was canceled that evening, with the festival citing “weather issues.”
Why it matters
Headlining 32 years after they last played Lollapalooza, the Sun-Times wrote, was “about recognizing that past while moving into a new era and a new audience for the band.” The guest list helped: it was a cross-generational split that catered to Day 1 fans and to listeners not born in the 1900s, and the crowd chose the set over Charli xcx, who was playing at the same time. Rodrigo has long worn her love of ’90s alt-rock on her sleeve, and this came after her duet with Robert Smith of The Cure at Primavera Sound.
The 17-song set also included “Disarm,” “Tonight, Tonight,” “Cherub Rock,” “Mayonaise” and “Zero,” per JamBase. Eight days earlier, the band had been named to the Hollywood Walk of Fame’s Class of 2027. The Pumpkins’ Lolla week, dubbed “Pumpkinpalooza” by the Sun-Times, began with a warm-up show at the Riviera on Wednesday, with Auf der Maur and actor Barry Williams on a cover of “It’s a Sunshine Day.”
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