Lyric Opera 2025-2026 Issue 7 - A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness

Lyric Opera of Chicago | 20 Rock Performance Grammy, in addition to six other nominations. This was in addition to cover stories from both Rolling Stone and SPIN , as well as a 1995 musical guest spot on Saturday Night Live , when the group performed “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “Zero.” The Pumpkins would even guest as themselves on the iconic “Homerpalooza” episode of The Simpsons in 1996, wherein Homer joins the fictitious Hullabalooza music festival as a sideshow performer and makes fast friends with the band. With all that momentum, the group hit the road for the exhaustive Infinite Sadness world tour, which spanned most of 1996 and into 1997. The album cycle would impact Chicago venues of all sizes, including four nights at the Double Door in February of 1995 to preview Mellon Collie material, an album release show at the Riviera Theatre with Cheap Trick, a Metro show in August of 1996, and three nights in October of that year at the Rosemont Horizon, now the Allstate Arena. The record would ultimately serve as the end of an era of The Smashing Pumpkins, closing a chapter on the guitar-based identity the band had maintained to that point. Corgan seemed presciently aware of the shift, even at the time. “We publicly made the decision that Mellon Collie is the last Smashing Pumpkins record that will be that kind of rock thing,” the frontman declared to SPIN in 1996. “We’re going to get off this train we’ve been on, which is to be this seek ’n’ destroy rock band. It’s not that you won’t hear it in the future in some guise.” That the Mellon Collie songbook is now reimagined by Corgan and Arranger/Conductor James Lowe and presented as a stunning new work with the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chorus is a testament to the longevity and caliber of the record. Thirty years after the world first heard the now iconic warning “The world is a vampire,” we assemble in the Lyric Opera House to hear these songs, familiar but also brand new again. We finally managed to manifest everything I always thought we could do. Mellon Collie garnered the Pumpkins awards and greater pop culture recognition. The band cleaned up at the 1996 MTV Music Video Awards; “Tonight, Tonight” garnered eight nominations and won in six categories, including Video of the Year. And “1979” would win for Best Alternative Video. The following year, “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” would take the Best Hard The Smashing Pumpkins perform during a benefit concert at Metro in 2010.