The first sound in the room has been a restrained one: the gentle pulse of “1979”, played before the guitars are allowed to open up. Then the amps take over for “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”, the song that gave the tour its name, and the rest of the first set belongs to one record. That is how the Smashing Pumpkins have been opening The Rats In A Cage Tour, a fall arena run that plays Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness as a complete first set and reaches the band’s home city, Chicago, on 14 October at the United Center.
The Chicago show follows a stop in St. Paul on 13 October, and it is not the band’s only hometown booking this year. The tour announcement from Red Light Management said the Smashing Pumpkins would headline Lollapalooza in Chicago on 31 July, for the first time in over 30 years and the first time since the festival’s touring days in 1994.
Two Sets, One Record at the Centre
The structure is the story. Each night has two distinct sets. The first is drawn only from Mellon Collie, the RIAA Diamond-certified double album the band released in 1995, staged in what the announcement calls a highly theatrical setting. The second ranges across nearly four decades of the catalogue, from the 1991 debut Gish to 2024’s Aghori Mhori Mei, and is meant to change from night to night.
Billy Corgan said in the announcement that a Mellon Collie-themed show had been discussed within the band for more than a decade, and that it finally came together on his own terms: a night built around the album’s most enduring ideas, with the second set loose enough that fans will not hear the same songs in the same order every time.
The band’s core line-up leads every night: Corgan, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. That matters for a record like this, which leans so heavily on the push and pull between Chamberlin’s drumming and the layered guitars. A rhythm section can be replaced; a feel is harder to reproduce.
What Happened on the Opening Night
The tour began on 30 September at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio, with a 32-song show. Ultimate Classic Rock’s report on the opening night lists a 16-song first set made up entirely of Mellon Collie material, including several songs the band had not played live in years.
“Cupid de Locke” and “Galapogos” returned for the first time since 2008. “F— You (An Ode to No One)”, “By Starlight” and the title track came back for the first time since 2007, 2010 and 2018 respectively. Alongside them came hits such as “Tonight, Tonight”, “Zero” and “Thirty-Three”, plus “Muzzle” and “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans”.
The second set leaned into the deep catalogue. Columbus heard the live debuts of “Jesus Is the Sun” from Gish and “Sojourner” from 2023’s ATUM: Act Three, alongside “Disarm”, “Ava Adore”, “Mayonaise”, “Today” and “Cherub Rock”, before closing on “Superchrist”.
No Two Second Sets Alike
The promise of variety in the second set has held up. By the time the tour reached Barclays Center in Brooklyn on 4 October, the shape of the night had already shifted. The Brooklyn set list on setlist.fm shows a three-hour show in which the second half opened with a solo performance of “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” by Kristeen Young, a different song from the Columbus opener of that set.
Small details changed in the first set too. In Brooklyn, “Tonight, Tonight” came with the band introductions, and “Zero” carried a “Tales of a Scorched Earth” outro. The core of the Mellon Collie half has stayed fixed so far, but the edges move, and so does much of the second set.
For fans who travel to more than one date, that is the appeal. Set lists that move from city to city have become part of the conversation on this autumn’s arena circuit, as with the way the Strokes skipped Last Nite in Queens but played it at The O2.
Thirty Years of Mellon Collie
The tour is the latest chapter in a long celebration. The announcement describes a multi-part 2025 anniversary programme for the album: a deluxe vinyl reissue with previously unheard live recordings from the original world tour, a reimagining of the album’s songs on stage with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and culinary collaborations with Vosges Haut-Chocolat and Erewhon.
There was also a farewell. Before the tour went on sale in May, the band staged a Requiem for ZERO at the Hollywood Legion Theater in Los Angeles, a funeral for ZERO, the persona Corgan first took on during the Mellon Collie era. Around 300 guests attended, according to the announcement.
The record still carries weight on stage because of how much ground it covers. Within a single first set, the band moves from the restraint of “1979” to the weight of “Zero” and the orchestral sweep of “Tonight, Tonight”. It is a demanding run for any line-up, and putting all of it in front of an arena audience before a single hit from another album is played is a statement of confidence in the room.
A Busy Decade for Corgan and the Band
The Rats In A Cage Tour lands in a productive stretch. Since 2020 the Smashing Pumpkins have released Cyr, the triple album Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Parts across 2022 and 2023, and Aghori Mhori Mei in 2024, and 2025 also brought a 25th anniversary reissue of Machina/The Machines of God.
Corgan’s other projects keep running in parallel. The announcement points to his podcast, The Magnificent Others, now in its second year, a surprise Coachella appearance alongside Sombr, and his role as president of the National Wrestling Alliance, which has returned to free broadcast television in the US through a deal with Comet TV.
From the IndieRock.News Curator Team: “Playing Mellon Collie as a full first set puts the album’s guitars and its rhythm section under arena lights in the order fans know. The second set is where the band takes risks, and that is what keeps the room guessing.”
Where the Tour Goes After Chicago
After St. Paul on 13 October and Chicago on 14 October, the tour heads south, then west, before finishing at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, on 12 November. The remaining dates are:
- 16 October: Charlotte, NC, Spectrum Center
- 17 October: Jacksonville, FL, VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
- 18 October: Tampa, FL, Benchmark International Arena
- 20 October: Indianapolis, IN, Gainbridge Fieldhouse
- 22 October: Nashville, TN, The Truth
- 24 October: Oklahoma City, OK, Paycom Center
- 25 October: Austin, TX, Moody Center
- 27 October: Denver, CO, Ball Arena
- 29 October: Salt Lake City, UT, Delta Center
- 30 October: Las Vegas, NV, MGM Grand Garden Arena
- 1 November: Portland, OR, Moda Center
- 3 November: Calgary, AB, Scotiabank Saddledome
- 5 November: Vancouver, BC, Rogers Arena
- 6 November: Seattle, WA, Climate Pledge Arena
- 8 November: San Jose, CA, SAP Center
- 11 November: Phoenix, AZ, Mortgage Matchup Center
- 12 November: Inglewood, CA, Kia Forum
The announcement also lists VIP packages that include a pre-show acoustic performance and a Q&A with the band. For anyone heading to the United Center, the opening of the night is already well documented. The second half is the part worth staying for, because on this tour it is the half nobody can predict.
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