The Smashing Pumpkins – Live Review – Scarborough Open Air Theatre

By Victoria Holdsworth, August 2025
There’s something slightly surreal about watching one of the biggest alt-rock bands of the ’90s play just a stone’s throw from the North Sea.
Scarborough was glowing this balmy August night, the town’s Open Air Theatre transformed into something else entirely: a place where distortion rolled across the water like summer fog, where Billy Corgan’s voice cut through the night air like a lighthouse beam, and where memories from three decades of music came crashing ashore.
The natural amphitheatre was already buzzing long before the band took the stage. As dusk settled over the lake, the stage lights began to glow, colours reflecting back like some surreal mirror of the sky above. Then, with a slow build, the first chords of ‘Glass’ Theme’ spilled out into the night, an overture of sorts, cinematic, slightly ominous and just enough to make you wonder what they were about to unleash.
“Raw, sludgy and dangerous”
Without pause, they tore into ‘Heavy Metal Machine’, executed with such a raw, sludgy and dangerous sound. The bass rumbled through the boards, the guitars grinding like steel against steel, and you could feel the first real shift in the crowd – the sense that this wasn’t going to be a polite evening of gentle nostalgia – with people in the pit already bouncing, beer flying and strangers becoming instant gig buddies.
‘Pentagrams’ followed, with its sullen, hypnotic groove and shadowy edges pulling the audience into a darker, more mysterious space. But then came the first explosion of familiarity with ‘Today’, and suddenly everyone was singing, fists in the air. The whole place lit up, voices carrying out over the water, and you could see people in their 40s and 50s smiling like teenagers again.
If the previous tune was a flash of pure sunlight, then of course they weren’t going to let us stay in that warm glow for too long before crashing us into ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’. Corgan practically screamed the “world is a vampire” line while Jeff Schroeder tore into the riff like it was personal, all combined with that eternal mix of scorn and theatre, every word dripping with venom.
“Deep and climatic”
‘Muzzle’, from their 1995 LP Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, lifted the energy back into the clouds, sweeping and anthemic, before the chiming intro of ‘1979’ brought a rush of shared memory. People swaying in unison, smiling wistfully, bathed in soft stage light as the song’s bittersweet glow filled the amphitheatre.
Then came a deep-cut curveball that had the hardcore fans losing their minds. ‘Edin’, deep and climactic, set the mood for the sprawling centrepiece of the night: ‘Porcelina of the Vast Oceans’. It began almost like a lullaby, soft and measured, the guitars sparkling like starlight on water. Gradually it grew, wave after wave of sound building to a roaring crescendo, until the final chords dissolved back into stillness. It felt like a journey in itself, and certainly a high point for anyone who came wanting to be swallowed whole by the music. They stretched it out, let it breathe.
The mood shifted again with the rare outing of ‘Sighommi’, with its slinky grooves, followed by the aching, almost weightless beauty of ‘Mayonaise’, which drew the loudest cheers of the night.
“Bodies bouncing everywhere”
There was an audible gasp when Corgan stepped forward to introduce the next number, a cover of Berlin’s 1986 hit, ‘Take My Breath Away’. Stripped down and mournful, it became something entirely different from the original. Gone were the cheesy ’80s synths and drum fills; this was eerie and slow, like they’d pulled it out of some forgotten David Lynch soundtrack.
The Smashing Pumpkins tightened their grip on the set’s flow with ‘999’, pulsing and sharp, before sliding into the fragile beauty of ‘Disarm’, which the crowd sang back every word like a hymn.
‘Tonight, Tonight’ arrived like a burst of fireworks, all sweeping orchestral drama and open-hearted romance, a moment where the whole venue felt lit from within, before ‘Cherub Rock’, preceded by a sly tease of ‘Scarborough Fair’, blasted everyone back into mosh mode. The crowd roared at the local nod, and when the riff hit, the place erupted, bodies bouncing everywhere.
From here, the night grew heavier and darker. ‘Jellybelly’ hit like a hammer, followed by the crunch and fury of ‘Bodies’, bringing pure sweaty chaos to the masses, before delivering the sultry menace of ‘Ava Adore’.
“A mix of rage and joy”
By the time they hit ‘Zero’, the venue was at fever pitch. Corgan spat the lyrics with a mix of rage and joy, the guitars hit like hammer blows.
The set closed with ‘The Everlasting Gaze’, but not before a mischievous snippet of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’. The final song was a grinding, hypnotic wall of sound, leaving the crowd in a kind of stunned silence as the last notes drifted out over the water.
Tonight was a carnival of distortion, beauty and unrelenting emotion. For over two hours, The Smashing Pumpkins didn’t just play a gig – they created an atmosphere, a whole other world, within Scarborough’s coastal cradle, the music seemingly rising and falling with the tide itself.
For a band with three decades of history, The Smashing Pumpkins remain unpredictable, theatrical and vital. They managed to create a dreamscape of music and invited us all inside; for one night, Scarborough wasn’t just a seaside town. It was a cathedral of sound, and the Pumpkins were its high priests.
Images: Cuffe & Taylor