If rock music is getting to the nostalgia-mining point where ’90s radio titans like Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots are being added to WZLX’s playlist, where does that leave Billy Corgan? The Chicago-born singer-guitarist’s band, Smashing Pumpkins, inexplicably didn’t place a song on the classic-rock stalwart’s recent Firecracker 500 countdown, even though its combination of arena bombast, grunge-era distortion, and irrestistible hooks made it one of the decade’s most important acts.  Corgan’s restlessness also helped define the Pumpkins; songs like the anxiously anthemic “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and even the sparkling “Today” became touchstones because of the way they blended surface pleasures with an undercurrent of agitation, while the band’s 1998 album, “Adore,” dabbled with electronics. Corgan has been the only consistent Pumpkins member over the years and 2014’s “Monuments to an Elegy” has both churning riffs and shimmering synthpop, tied together by his inimitable yowl and guitar pyrotechnics.  The Pumpkins’ set on Tuesday at Blue Hills Bank Pavilion was heavy on the band’s older material — the snarling “Cherub Rock” opened the show, and a singalong-powered “Today” closed it — but songs from “Monuments” and other 21st-century Pumpkins releases held their own. Near the end of the show, Corgan (whose restive nature thankfully extends to an inability to mince words) celebrated the exit of “poseurs” who had come to hear the hits, and led his band into a series of newer offerings that showcased the current lineup’s drum-tight rapport; “Thru the Eyes of Ruby” ended with Corgan and prodigal drummer Jimmy Chamberlin locking into a back-and-forth of flourishes, while the storming “United States” was punctuated with both a winding “Star-Spangled Banner” solo and an outro that felt as loose as a basement jam session.  Co-headlining Tuesday’s show was Marilyn Manson, whose eponymous band’s ninth album, “The Pale Emperor,” is spindly, withered glam-rock that sounds like a record by a dead ’70s star reanimated and given a crash course in the world’s ills right before he went into the studio. Manson’s taut set was spectacular and profane, with references to drugs and sex and religion interspersed between crushing takes on the grinding “The Beautiful People” and the gritty “Emperor” cut “Third Day of a Seven-Day Binge.”  Together, the Pumpkins and Manson represented what could be called an alternative to classic rock’s constant push toward canonization. Instead they’ve opted for self-reinvention that surprises audiences, while also nodding toward the past.  Smashing Pumpkins / Marilyn Manson  At: Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, Tuesday
Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson delivered what was expected at Blue Hills Bank Pavilion on Tuesday: both big hits and surprising detours.