"Celebrate this iconic album on the grandest scale possible." Billy Corgan adds additional shows to his orchestral Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness opera tour

Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins — (Image credit: John Shaw)

Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has announced additional European shows on his 'A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness Featuring Billy Corgan' tour.

Premiered with a critically acclaimed seven date run last year at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the orchestral and operatic rendering of Smashing Pumpkins’ iconic 1995 album is described in a press statement as paying "homage to the era-defining album of the same name, whilst also expanding the definition and intention of opera."

"The success of translating Mellon Collie into operatic and classical form has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life," Corgan has said. “Where on each of the seven sold out nights in Chicago we’d finish within the raucous wave of a standing ovation. So to now take it on the road, and to Europe, too says this magical dream doesn’t have to end."

The extra shows will be staged in Rotterdam and in Brussels. Previously announced dates in London, Antwerp, Madrid and Lisbon have already sold out.

A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness Featuring Billy Corgan

Aug 29: Rotterdam De Doelen, Netherlands
Aug 30: Rotterdam De Doelen, Netherlands
Sep 01: London Royal Festival Hall, UK [Sold out]
Sep 02: London Royal Festival Hall, UK [Sold out]
Sep 04: Brussels Bozar, Belgium
Sep 06: Antwerp Queen Elisabeth Hall, Belgium (2 shows) [Sold out]
Sep 08: Paris Salle Pleye, France
Sep 09: Paris Salle Pleye, France
Sep 11: Madrid Palacio Vistalegre, Spain [Sold out]
Sep 12: Madrid Palacio Vistalegre, Spain [Sold out]
Sep 15: Lisbon Coliseu dos Recreios, Portugal [Sold out]

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The Smashing Pumpkins third album, released on October 23, 1995, the 28-track Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was one of the most ambitious and commercially successful rock albums of the '90s, selling 10 million copies in the US alone. It features hit singles Bullet With Butterfly Wings, 1979, Zero, Tonight, Tonight and Thirty-Three.

"This album has come pretty close to being the definitive Smashing Pumpkins album," Corgan told this writer in 1995. "This is the best that we can be as the Smashing Pumpkins as people know it."

"The original idea was to make the album like a soundtrack of a day and a night," he added, "but I kind of went away from that a bit. Obviously you don't go through 28 different emotions in one day. It's about life in a general sense."

Artists

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.