music

Many old bands touring with newly revamped lineups try to cover up the fact that they don't have all their original members. And then there are the Smashing Pumpkins, who didn't waste any time pointing out their shortage of co-founders Tuesday night at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul.

Just four minutes into the show, during the opening song "United States," the band whittled itself down to just frontman Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin on stage alone. The two original Pumpkins proceeded to offer an excessive and downright dopey jam for another three or four minutes, as if the sold-out crowd wanted them -- and just them -- right away.

What the fans wanted, of course, was not in the cards -- at least not yet. The quartet's two other original members reportedly declined to reunite.

As a result, the Chicago band whose free 1998 appearance at the Hennepin Avenue Block Party in Minneapolis went down as the biggest rock concert in Twin Cities history (roughly 100,000 attendees) were left playing an old St. Paul auditorium with three unknown hired guns to 5,000 dedicated but somewhat skeptical fans.

Aside from the trite attempts to sell the value of the Pumpkins' would-be Dynamic Duo -- Corgan and Chamberlin also performed the acoustic favorite "Perfect" later in the show -- the concert did at least justify that the band carry on, at least in name and in sound, after its 2000 split.

The new Pumpkins certainly tried hard to earn respect. They performed for more than 2 ½ hours, which were, for the most part, as intense and solid as most shows the old Pumpkins put on, though. This one even outshone some of the shows near the end of the old lineup, when Corgan went a little too heavy on the heavy goth/industrial sound.

It was a good sign when the band played two of the floweriest/prettiest rockers from its early days, "Rocket" and "Drown," early in the set. The latter tune sounded as thrilling as it did back on the "Singles" soundtrack (talk about a sign of the grunge times).

Another old-school nugget, "Hummer," came later, and the encore finale was the forever-hummable "Today."

Some of the songs on the current lineup's new album, "Zeitgeist," also offered less of the bleakness and snarl of the Pumpkins' latter days, including the stormy highlight "Bring the Light" and the gorgeous rocker "Stand Inside Your Love." When the old snarl did come -- with the mega-hit "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" and the new single "Tarantula" -- it still had plenty of bite.

And it took a lot more than Corgan and Chamberlin to pull it off.

Chris Riemenschneider • chrisr@startribune.com