God bless nostalgia. With touring becoming ever-more expensive and punters being forced to make tactical decisions about what shows to go to, it's hardly surprising we're enjoying a golden age of nostalgia-driven package tours that perfectly cater to Fans Of A Certain Vintage, offering just a little more bang for your buck with the added bonus of bringing together the kinds of bills you could only fantasize about 25 years ago. Enter, The Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer, two of the scene's most enduring - if creatively mecurial - forces uniting for a massive night out that's packing arenas throughout the UK, kicking off at Birmingham's Utilita Arena.
For 90s alt rock fans, this is the holy grail and the ultimate testament to how diverse the Gen-X alt gold rush was both stylistically and philosophically. In the left corner, Billy Corgan's maximalist, artful yet arch art metal operas, where no concept is too grandiose and everything from classical music to shoegaze can be deployed at the drop of a hat. On the right, Rivers Cuomo's penchant for pure, simple rock with no ostentation, a collision of power pop choruses and massive riffs that somehow blurred the lines between punk, 70s rock/heavy metal and indie. They might inhabit the same broad church of alternative rock, but they sing from very different hymn sheets.
