SMASHING, POST INVASION

They came, they played, they conquered, Smashing Pumpkins did, despite absence of billboard advertising or promo giveaways pre-show, preferring instead word of mouth, or the subliminal marites of its own silent armies.

- JUANIYO ARCELLANA

Last year, the Chicago-based band released “Aghori Mhori Mei,” their former bass player D’Arcy nowhere around, but the band still loud and headbanging as ever. A full-fledged reunion wasn’t written in the stars.

This year, of course, marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the band’s groundbreaking double album, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” worthy soundtrack during Agencia Efe days and the graveyard shift on dela Costa Street, Makati. From which a number of tunes were played before local fans at the Araneta Coliseum on the last Monday of September amid intermittent rains: Tonight, Tonight, Jellybelly, Porcelina and the Vast Oceans, and the anthemic 1979, which had the crowd singing along.

But before “Mellon Collie,” a couple years earlier was Smashing’s “Siamese Dream,” heard only much later yet striking an awesome chord all around, not a weak cut on it. The groundbreaking second album was also well-represented that night: Today, Spaceboy, Disarm, Cherub Rock and the redoubtable Mayonaise, whose opening guitar lines were used in the last episode of the Netflix sleeper “Beef.”