A two-night stand at a largish venue is ambitious, not just for any artist, but especially for one that peaked in popularity more than ten years ago. Add to that a mostly non-pop set played to a relatively pop-sized crowd, and the kind of complications that arise are fairly intuitive.

The Smashing Pumpkins played two shows last week to a mostly-filled D.A.R. Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., and the band's biggest fans were probably thrilled with the almost 50 song set between the two evenings, but the casual fans in attendance may have felt left out in the cold, with only about 7 “hit” songs being played a night.

Though there certainly were some misfires, the sets were overall, mostly impressive. Night one was the most interesting, while night two was probably the better show.

Nov. 11's performance kicked off right at 8 without an opener, which caught some of the drinking crowd in the hallways off-guard (You weren’t SUPPOSED to be able to bring drinks into the auditorium. Sorry about that empty cup under my seat, D.A.R.) When Billy Corgan took the stage in some sort of Elizabethan looking gown, complete with headdress, I knew we were in for an interesting time.

This show proved to be the louder of the two, featuring most of the Pumpkins heavier material, new, old or otherwise. “United States,” “Superchrist,” “G.L.O.W.,” and “Taruntula” served as a four-song sampler of the ferocious rock side of the new Pumpkins, while “Siva,” “Today” and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” celebrated its hit-soaked past. Even some b-sides and rarities, such as “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning,” “Eye,” “Transformer,” and “Glass Theme” sounded great and were received well.  

A three-song acoustic set of an "Adore" album track and two “American Gothic” songs, though played brilliantly, seemed to lose the crowd a little and kill the momentum the band had whipped up. Remember, the Pumpkins were playing an obscure set, so any kind of momentum you can build playing songs most of the audience doesn’t know should be sustained.

The biggest misfires were long, droning songs that lost just about everyone.  A reworked version of “Heavy Metal Machine” that clocked in somewhere around 15 minutes was completely unnecessary and uninteresting, except when it briefly segued into a cover of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” and a 20-some minute cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set  the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” as a set closer played as a big “f you” to the crowd for expecting, well, anything at all. It was hilarious to watch the band play with bird calls for five minutes, but I also didn’t pay $50 to see it. The girl sitting next to me who claimed the Pumpkins as her “all-time favorite band” was sleeping. Seriously.

Nov. 12’s show, at least at the outset, was straight-forward, honest to goodness Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan took the stage this time in a much more normal (well, for him) outfit: A black kimono, dress-type thing with a light-up pumpkin-shaped trick or treat bucket in hand.

The set was all over the place, just like night 1, but it seemed to focus a little bit more on the beat-driven or less-heavy rockers.

Three fan favorites, “Adore,” “Cupid de Locke,” and “1979” kicked off the show, and probably set the tone for the much better audience reception, since the crowd got up on their feet right away as opposed to the previous night’s crowd-bouncer “Mayonaise,” which wasn’t played until fourth, about 30 minutes into the show.

“99 Floors,” a great acoustic, “Song for a Son,” a trippy, jam ballad, and “The March Hare,”  percussion-driven madness, showed a much more ambitious and diverse side to the Pumpkins new material that will have “Zeitgeist” haters hopeful for a more risky and evolved follow-up.

Night 2 was probably the most digestible of the shows, not because of song selection, because the list was just as obscure as night one, but because the dynamic played better in the constitution hall. The less distortion, the better the band sounded.

The Pumpkins repeated the worst moments of night 1 on night 2 with long, pointless jam songs that no one knows. “Gossamer” and “I Am One 2” were the worst examples from both nights, though they were much shorter than the Pink Floyd cover. A metal version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence,” had a lot of people scratching their heads, but actually played fairly well.

Overall successes: The band sounds great right now. The same new members who joined up with Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain last year when the Pumpkins reformed have obviously developed some rock and roll chops over the course of a grueling world tour with a hard-ass boss. An additional four musicians playing horns, strings and extra percussion were added for this tour. Some of the band’s new material sounds great, and will keep a lot people interesting in a future release.

Overall failures: The set lists were a little too extreme for this size of a venue. These sets, to me, play better on the club circuits where you would attract mostly die-hard fans. Also, long songs that no one knows aren’t the best selections for a 20th anniversary tour and although I’m sure it’s tons of fun to play weird covers, one a night would suffice. The sets were poorly ordered as well. All of the big hits were grouped in little bundles near the beginning and middle, leaving the end of each night feeling pretty anti-climactic.

Most hilarious moment: The encore of day 1. "We Only Come Out at Night" featured the entire band on kazoos and the verse portions of "Everything is Beautiful" were, essentially, Billy Corgan comedy hour. After someone yelled "Where's James Iha?" Corgan pointed to a girl in the crowd, brought her up on stage and interviewed her as if she were the Pumpkins former guitarist. He also made fun of a couple of hecklers for buying tickets, and went off on a sarcastic rant about how much of a sell out he is, each time going back to the "Everything is Beautiful" refrain. 

The Smashing Pumpkins at D.A.R. Constitution Hall: Nov. 11 Grade: B- Nov. 12: A-

Set lists:

Nov. 11: Roctopus / Everybody Come Clap Your Hands (Searchers) / Tarantula / G.L.O.W. / Siva / Eye / Mayonaise / Tonight, Tonight / Speed Kills / Transformer / Superchrist / United States / Once Upon A Time / Again, Again, Again (The Crux) / The Rose March / Geek U.S.A. (tease) / Black Diamond (Kiss) (Tease) / Today / Bullet With Butterfly Wings / The Beginning is the End is the Beginning / Heavy Metal Machine / Glass' Theme / Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (Pink Floyd) / Encore: We Only Come Out at Night / Everything is Beautiful (Ray Stevens)

Nov. 12: Ava Adore / Cupid de Locke / 1979 / 99 Floors / Owata / Sunkissed / Soma / Cherub Rock / Zero / Bodies / Crestfallen / I of Mourning / A Song for a Son / Landslide (Fleetwood Mac) / Disarm / Mellan Collie and the Infinite Sadness / Galapogos / Gossamer / As Rome Burns / The Sounds of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel) - Lil' Red Riding Hood  / The March Hare - Suffer / Age of Innocence /  Encore: That's The Way (My Love Is) /I Am One pt. 2