Kevin Bronson on December 17th, 2014

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Billy Corgan has been in a news a lot recently, giving good interview, waxing philosophical about the state of music and his place in it, the psoriasis of pop culture and, naturally, the Smashing Pumpkins’ new album “Monuments to an Elegy,” their ninth. He’s been ambushed by Anderson Cooper (and returned fire), likened his role as a rock frontman to that of a professional wrestler (he may have something there) and generally posited himself among ’90s survivors as the anti-bro (sign of the horns to Dave Grohl).

• ||| Photos by Carl Pocket

The 47-year-old brought none of that raillery to the Fonda Theatre on Tuesday night during a 95-minute show that was virtually absent any sparring with fans or pulpiteering. “I know it doesn’t seem like it sometimes, but we play music, not make jokes,” he said during an aside to his bandmate of seven years, guitarist Jeff Schroeder. “Jokes are so 2007.”

This incarnation of the Pumpkins features bassist Mark Stoermer (the Killers) and
drummer Brad Wilk (Rage Against The Machine), the pair having replaced Nicole Fiorentino and Mike Byrne, respectively. Stoermer cast a stoic presence on stage, while Wilk seemed to still be feeling his way, hiccuping on the intro to 1995’s “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and drawing a good-natured, bent-over-backwards laugh from Corgan.

The show had its thrills, and there it depended on which Smashing Pumpkins’ camp fans fall into – the nostalgists with the where’s-Jimmy-where’s-James whine or the devotees committed to Corgan’s conviction to push forward. There were plenty of the former at the Fonda, and much of that owed to the steep ticket price, $69.50 before fees. Ostensibly, the Pumpkins’ older fans were more likely to be able to afford that. And predictably, those older fans raised arms and voices to the likes of “Hummer,” “Tonight, Tonight,” “Zero,” “Disarm” and “Bullet.”

(Also predictably, the days of crowds at Smashing Pumpkins shows turning into a sea of churning, moshing bodies might be over, because … well, older fans.)

The “Monuments” tunes provided their own electricity, even if this keyboardist-less lineup lacked the synth lines present on the album. “One and All (We Are)” and “Being Beige” kicked off the show, and “Drum + Fife’s” immediacy won over the unfamiliar by the 2-minute mark. The Pumpkins also repped “Tiberius” and “Monuments” from the new album. And there were the quartet’s excursions into prog land, with Corgan and Schroeder dueling like gunslingers. Signs of the horns indeed.

Prior to the main set-ending foray into “Silverfuck,” Corgan led the band through an almost-bar-band cover of David Bowie’s “Fame,” looking like he owned it. It was Bowie who once said, “Ironically, you become a rock star because you don’t want to do what people tell you to, then you become famous and lose control of that.”

As “Monuments” shows and as he carries the Smashing Pumpkins name forward, Corgan still has the upper hand in that negotiation.