Fans attending a Smashing Pumpkins concert at Chicago’s Riviera Theater last week were greeted with a nostalgic blast from the past from frontman Billy Corgan welcomed a surprise guest.
It began when Corgan and company kicked off a song — but not a Pumpkins track.
Instead, they began playing an unfamiliar jangly punk-infused pop song.
Then, the audience cheered when none other than Barry Williams — best known for playing oldest brother Greg Brady on beloved 1970s sitcom “The Brady Bunch” — took to the stage.
A Very Brady Pumpkins Performance
Williams proceeded to step up to the mic.
As he began to sing, the song became identifiable as “It’s a Sunshine Day,” the bubblegum pop single recorded by Williams and his faux siblings in the early 1970s.
‘It’s a Sunshine Day’
Written by Steven McCarthy, the song was released by The Brady Bunch in 1972, and became a minor hit.
At the time, pop singles connected to sitcoms were all the rage. The Monkees had racked up a string of hits from their hit TV show, while “The Patridge Family” — bolstered by the vocals of teen idol David Cassidy — struck gold with “I Think I Love You.”
An Unlikely Friendship
While it’s understandable that fans would be confused over the pairing of Corgan and Williams, it turns out that they have recently become friends.
The pair revealed they’d become pals when Williams appeared as a guest on Corgan’s podcast, “The Magnificent Others.”
As Rolling Stone reports, during the podcast Corgan and Williams recalled being on the street together when a fan approached Williams, and declared, “Hey Greg!”
Interestingly, the fan calling Williams by his character’s name proved to be more upsetting to Corgan than it was to the actor.
“I was so impressed that you had sort of made peace with the whole thing,” Corgan said.
Always a Brady
During their conversation, Williams opened up about what it was like to still be defined by a TV show that he’d been in for a few years more than five decades ago.
While some might resent it, Williams admitted he’d come to treasure it.
“There’s a privilege in that, if you have a good attitude about it,” he explained.
“Because it’s like having friends everywhere you go,” he said — which was certainly clear by the enthusiastic crowd reaction when he joined the Smashing Pumpkins onstage.
Coming to Terms with Greg Brady
As Williams admitted, coming to that epiphany did not come quickly for him.
As he told Corgan, in the years immedately after “The Brady Bunch” ended its five-season run, “being called Greg made me feel like they didn’t know me and that somehow it was a threat to my identity… a non-acknowledgment as well.”
Over time, though, he came to understand that fans associating him with his character wasn’t a diss — it was actually a display of affection.
Ultimately, he came to realize that it was “less about it being about me and more about what they’re experiencing, what they’re seeing, and what their intention is. And it wasn’t meant to be offensive. It wasn’t meant to disregard me.”
