Osheaga returns in 1994 | La Presse

The Osheaga festival was founded in 2006. But if it had existed in 1994, its headliners might have been those of 2024: The Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day, who, on Saturday night, were in customer satisfaction mode, but in the most noble and generous of ways.

Aside from his hair, Billie Joe Armstrong, 52, still looks every bit the lovable whiner he was in 1994. Dookiethe album that splashed the planet and in the manure of which a plethora of pop punk bands were born. Bassist Mike Dirnt, also 52, still has the face and raised collar of the corporal of the most amusing of armies. The explosive drummer Tré Cool, 51 and blue-headed, remains the individual with the most apt and appropriate nickname in the history of rock.

The Green Day machine is still in magnificent condition and the Californian trio (augmented by two guitarists) intended Saturday night to put the best possible fuel in its tank. Unlike other dates of its current tour, the group did not play the entirety of Dookiewhich is celebrating its 30th^e birthday, andAmerican Idiotwhich is celebrating its 20th anniversary, but a generous selection of the most indelible songs from these two classics.

After a long intro, during which the following songs rang out (in full): Bohemian Rhapsody of Queen and Blitzkrieg Bop Ramones, a rabbit showed up on stage. It was the mascot of Punk Bunny Coffee, the coffee company owned by the three members of Green Day, because in 2024, you have to diversify your activities.

Then finally came the time to plug in the amps, which there were dozens of on stage. After The American Dream Is Killing Metaken from Saviorstheir most recent album (rather average), Billie Joe and company have continued Basket Case, Longview, Welcome to Paradise, She, In the End And When I Come Around (all taken from Dookie), which is pretty much the best you could hope for from a show by a veteran band of the genre, 20 years after the release of their last truly essential album.

It was predictable: the big tunes ofAmerican Idiot (2004) They also generated, in the second half, a very lively reaction, a good opportunity to remember that few groups of this caliber have left such a mark on popular music, a decade apart.

With as much flame as an Iron Maiden show and firecrackers whose every explosion could have killed a heart patient, we were a long way from the small, sweaty rooms of the band’s early days.

But Billie Joe Armstrong has lost none of his cheekiness and early in the evening, he mocked one of the only beers offered on the Osheaga site, Coors Light, calling it “Nazi beer from Colorado”. A joke to which hundreds of festival-goers raised their glasses.

Billy’s Smile

Billy Corgan doesn’t smile often. But when Billy Corgan smiles, it’s as beautiful as the sky in Chicago, the hometown of his Smashing Pumpkins. As beautiful as the sky in Montreal around 7:45 p.m., the time when the flagship group of the 1990s took to one of the two big stages at Osheaga, just before Green Day.

Almost 30 years ago to the day, on July 27, 1994, the Smashing Pumpkins visited the same St. Helena Island and what was then called the Parc des Îles, for the legendary traveling festival Lollapalooza. An event during which, according to our venerable sports colleague Richard Labbé, Corgan had “yelled at the people in the front row with his shitty attitude.”

In his long black cassock with red buttons, the leader with the shiny skull was visibly in another state of mind on Saturday evening, and had prepared an hour almost exclusively composed of immortals of alternative rock, which seemed the most enlightened of decisions, even if the trio launched its 13th album no later than last Friday^e album, Aghori Mhori Mei. The few songs selected fromAtumthe previous album, were received with predictable lukewarmness.

But Today ? But Tonight, Tonight ? But Bullet with Butterfly Wings ? It was euphoria, it was all we needed. Despite his age, Billy Corgan still has the rage of a rat in a cage and seemed invigorated by the presence of the young guitarist with the look of a member of Judas Priest, Kiki Wong, recruited last April following a call for all launched by the group.

Corgan even gave up his guitar for Ava Adore to pace the stage and show the entire island of Saint Helena the smile on his face. No shitty attitude in sight.

There was nothing in this performance to prove that the Smashing Pumpkins are still making particularly relevant music in 2024. But the songs that Corgan, the understated James Iha (in his dapper white cowboy suit), and the mighty drummer Jimmy Chamberlin created between 1993 and 1998 belong to eternity. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating them.