Relive all your ’90s teen rebellion when the killer double bill of Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson hits Champions Square for its “End Times Tour” at 7 p.m. tonight.
During their ’90s heyday, Smashing Pumpkins almost single-handedly made guitar heroics fashionable again; and it was an open secret that mastermind Billy Corgan played virtually everything but drums on their first two landmark albums, Gish and Siamese Dream. The real news about this Smashing Pumpkins tour is that original drummer Jimmy Chamberlin is back with Corgan, who’s been leading the Pumpkins with no other originals for the past decade. So expect a setlist heavy on the band’s first three, best-loved albums, though he’s pulled out surprises like the Fleetwood Mac cover “Landslide” and the more recent epic “United States.”
Recently seen sending up his own dark image on TV’s Californication. Marilyn Manson will also hark back to his ’90s heyday. His recent setlists also sport a pair of cover tunes—namely, Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” and Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This”—but otherwise feature tunes like “Dope Show” and “Antichrist Superstar.” All the above made Manson every parents’ nightmare for a time, before even the parents saw his underlying huckster-ish humor.
The show begins tonight at 7 p.m.; tickets are available now through LiveNation.com or tonight at the door.