Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer review

O2 Arena, London
Billy Corgan’s band are bloated with self-importance, but Rivers Cuomo and company continue to dole out witty power-pop with elan

Co-headline tours of this ilk can allow relatively long-in-the-tooth artists to pool their fanbases and play large venues that they would not necessarily be able to fill on their own. Nevertheless, this particular pairing of two bands who arrived in the wake of the early 90s US grunge rock scene appears decidedly incongruous.

When Weezer (★★★) emerged with a self-titled 1994 debut album of hook-laden geek-rock and nerdy, knock-kneed songs about teen angst, they were met with critical horror. In a post-Nirvana musical landscape in thrall to aching authenticity, they were dismissed as lightweight dilettantes, fronted by a holidaying Harvard scholar in Rivers Cuomo.