The Smashing Pumpkins‘ Billy Corgan joined My Chemical Romance on stage to perform ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’. See the footage below.
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The emo giants are currently on their ‘Long Live The Black Parade’ tour, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their seminal 2006 album. During the tour, they’ve been covering the Pumpkins’ 1995 hit ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’.
Billy Corgan and co have responded by sharing a series of memes about the band on their Instagram, specifically about the likeness between Corgan and Gerard Way – who fans frequently joke is his son.
Now, Corgan has joined MCR on stage. During a concert in Chicago on Friday (August 29), Way told the crowd how seeing the band’s ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ tour inspired his own music. “We saw that and was like, ‘We would love to do this, it would be real fucking amazing.”
Way’s continued, talking about how their music had followed him through his life. “It’s the pandemic right, and I’m super sad about it,” he said. “And I come across this video, it’s late night and I’m sitting alone… I’m scrolling through Instagram and I see this fucking kid in his room playing along to ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’… I’m watching this thing and I felt the blade of Christ enter my chest; it was wild. I never felt anything like that in my life.
“This song is the ultimate rock defiance to me; it’s like searing an imprint on the universe in pure fucking defiance. It is the best rock n’ roll song ever fucking made.” Corgan then joined them to perform the hit. Watch the moment below.
“Great fun! And fantastic gig by the boys,” Corgan wrote on social media after the show. “Just killed it in front of a massive Chicago crowd.”
The relationship between the two bands goes back years, prior to My Chemical Romance forming. In a previous interview with Rock Sound, MCR bassist Mikey Way recalled seeing the Pumpkins on their 1996 ‘Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ tour, which he credited with inspiring him to form a band.
“I started to think about almost everything a little differently after that night. I was like, ‘Man, I don’t think there’s maybe anything else I’d rather do in life than maybe do what they’re doing,’” he said.
“I remember that and the energy in the room. I was so awestruck, that they were playing Madison Square Garden a day after or two days after, and I was like, ‘I gotta go again,’” he continued, adding that he wanted to bring his brother Gerard to the second show.
“I think my brother had that same kind of revelation I did that night when we saw the Madison Square Garden show,” he continued. “I remember nudging him and being like, ‘This is what I want to do. This is what we’re gonna do — and we’re gonna play in this room.’ And I remember him completely agreeing with me at the moment and being like, ‘You’re absolutely right.’”
Mikey Way tells us how seeing The Smashing Pumpkins live with his brother Gerard made them want to form My Chemical Romance pic.twitter.com/tn4zVGeFIi
— Rock Sound (@rocksound) November 19, 2021
Gerard has also publicly spoken about the advice and help Corgan has offered him, telling My Turning Point podcast host Steve Baltin: “He’s so smart, and he’s said so much to me over the years in the times that I’ve hung out with him.”
“He’s just been really good to me,” he continued. “And when I moved to LA, he would go to vintage rooms with me to try out amps, [because] I was looking for a heavier sound. He would go and try the stuff out with me. But he’s given me advice over the years. Some of it I wasn’t ready to hear, some of it I had to find out for myself.”
Gerard also reflected on the experience when he interviewed Corgan in 2020 for Alternative Press, telling him: “One time we spoke about the machine of being in a big band. You referred to it as a train, from what I remember. The train is going, but it’s rusting, and it’s getting rustier as you continue on that train. But no matter what, that train won’t stop.”
Corgan then responded: “It took me a long time of accepting things and, at the same time, making peace with my own ambition. I was so ambitious when I was young. […] What I’m really hopeful [about] is that we’re probably the last generations that are going to have to do whatever that was,” Corgan added. “And that the next generation coming will have a different opportunity. Now they may choose to want to be in the machine because it’s a lazier option.
“We weren’t given the option of ‘not the machine’. The point is: The younger generations coming will be given the option of the machine or not. I would love to see the power of the next genius that comes down the line. A 20-year-old, just beginning, has all the brilliance that you need.”
Elsewhere at Friday’s concert, MCR paid tribute to their former bandmate Bob Bryar, who died last year, aged 44.
Earlier this month, the band announced two shows planned at London’s Wembley Stadium, with the dates seeing them head to the capital on July 10 and 11 next year.
As for The Smashing Pumpkins, they recently shared details about the upcoming 25th anniversary reissue of their 2000 albums, ‘Machina/The Machines of God’ and ‘Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music’.
