Billy Corgan is going on tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Smashing Pumpkins‘ ‘Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness’.
The 58-year-old singer will not be joined at the ‘Return To Zero’ concerts in North America by the rest of the band as the shows – which will also mark the 25th anniversary of the group’s double album ‘Machina’ – will be part of a solo project, Billy Corgan and the Machines of God,
Instead, Billy will perform with new Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Kiki Wong, drummer Jake Hayden and bassist Kid Tigrrr, whose real name is Jenna Fournier.
An announcement on Smashing Pumpkins’ social media accounts read: “@billycorgan has announced a new solo project titled ‘Billy Corgan and The Machines of God’ who will commemorate the anniversaries of the legendary albums with sets drawn from ‘Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness’ and the double album Machina/The Machines of God + Machina II/The Friends + Enemies of Modern Music as well as the 2024 release, Aghori Mhori Mei with a national US tour set to kick off this summer. The tour, titled A Return To Zero, will launch on June 7th.
“The A Return to Zero Tour will reintroduce a four-piece, two set guitar lineup in which music from these seminal Pumpkins albums were created. The shows will feature classic tracks and deep cuts from the highly acclaimed records. In addition to Corgan, The Machines of God will feature recently recruited Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Kiki Wong, drummer Jake Hayden and bassist Kid Tigrrr (Jenna Fournier).
“Artist presale beginning Tuesday, April 1st at 10:00AM local time through Thursday, April 3rd at 10:00PM local time. Following the presale, the general onsale will begin Friday, April 4th at 10:00AM local time.(sic)”
The 16-date tour will begin on 7 June in Baltimore and will call at cities including Boston, Toronto, Montreal, New York, Detroit, Pittsburgh and more before wrapping up in Minneapolis.
The news comes a few weeks after Billy announced some special concerts in which he is teaming up with the Lyric Opera of Chicago to reimagine ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ in an operatic style in November.
He said: “Opera and rock both tell stories of heightened emotions, and I am excited for both fans of my music and traditional opera fans to hear some truly inspired work; for the balance here is to honor both traditions in a magisterial way.”