Watch Billy Corgan Of Smashing Pumpkins Cover The Grateful Dead’s “Box Of Rain” In Brooklyn [Video]

This weekend, former Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan (now going by his full name, William Patrick Corgan) staged a two-night run at Brooklyn’s Murmmr Theatre to open his tour behind newly released solo album, Ogilala, his first in over a decade. Each of the two-set performances featured one set of material from the new album and one set of Smashing Pumpkins favorites and choice covers.

Saturday’s second set featured tunes by Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd. On Sunday, Corgan performed both a Neil Young tune and his first-ever live solo rendition of The Grateful Dead‘s “Box of Rain,” which gave Corgan a chance to show both his respect for the Dead and his sense of humor. As Corgan explained while introducing the tune, “Actually, this is a song by the Grateful Dead. [Crowd Cheers] – oh, stoners? Deadheads? How many Deadheads are here tonight? [Crowd Cheers]. This is for Jerry, man…”

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Billy inflected the American Beauty (1970) classic with his signature nasal-y wail, taking creative liberties with melody and cadence and reinterpreting it to great effect. If you didn’t know any better, you could be forgiven for thinking that this song came out of Corgan’s own catalogue–the mark of a great cover.

An amusing incident also occurred partway through the song, as Corgan went to start a harmonica solo after “find me dreaming too,” and quickly realized that he had the wrong key harmonica on his stand. With a wry smile, Corgan abruptly stopped, faux-indignantly tossed the fraudulent harmonica to the side, grabbed the correct one, threw it on the stand, and proceeded to finish the song unfazed as the crowd chuckled with appreciation.

You can watch crowd-shot footage of Corgan’s Grateful Dead cover in Brooklyn below, via YouTube user kenneth h.