Live Review: Garbage - O2 Apollo, Manchester 19/07/2024
Being unsung post-grunge heroes in the scene since the 90s, Scottish-American outfit Garbage are embarking on a new overdue run of UK shows. Finding themselves in a city they praise for its rich music history, even frontwoman Shirley Manson calls playing in Manchester once again an honour - an endearment she doesn’t use freely. Here’s what happened when the life-living, love-loving band took to a northwest stage in 2024.
Opening for the band are rising Scottish stars Lucia & the Best Boys. Hailing from Glasgow, the group are promoting the release of their debut record Burning Castles and have brought all of the forces of nature and the glory of their rural pride to their performance. Frontwoman Lucia Fairfull told the story of how the album was written and created within the northern Scottish countryside, and it shows. Fairfull’s mystical presence gives an air of magic and witchcraft to their brand of indie-rock, and it worked to enchant the entire venue that night.
With a roaring round of applause as their set ends, it shows that this is an act who is overdue on taking on their own headline tour. They have already guaranteed thousands of fans from that night alone.
For those who have never attended a Garbage show, there is no way to prepare them for what they are about to witness. The sounds, the sights, and power and the electricity frying the atmosphere. Being aided with abstract imagery and patterned footage, and arrays of strobe lights and spotlights, this is the Garbage that everyone knows and will ever know. Opening with tracks such as ‘#1 Crush’, ‘Godhead’ and the worldwide hit ‘I Think I’m Paranoid’, no time was wasted on getting the crowd moving, grooving, jumping and singing along. Without any previous knowledge, one would possibly confuse this show being one run by a bunch of fresh-faced twenty-somethings who are in their heyday rather than a seasoned set of rock artists and producers. Age is only a number, and time is an illusion, and when it comes to Garbage, music is all that exists in that moment.
Manson made a name for herself as a vocal person in the industry, and between songs she was sharing tales and moments from the band’s career in a way that felt like the most punk-rock Ted talk anyone would attend. The one that resonated most was telling the tale of how the band’s previous label Interscope had let them know they were being dropped, and Manson was struggling to comprehend it when she was driving down the road and spotted a poster for her band, being sold on the corner of the street for a mere $2. Describing it as one of her lowest points in her career, she used the story to inspire the entire audience that no one is ever “over”, no band is ever “finished” and especially concerning themselves, no one is ever “too old” to keep going in the arts. Making note that she herself is only weeks away from her 58th birthday, she praises herself and her bandmates for persevering through it all to get to the point they are today; specifically, to get back to venues such as the O2 Apollo, to play to a crowd of that size before them in that moment.
If anyone ever needs motivation to stay determined and keep going in their ventures, Shirley Manson is ready and available.
The setlist seems to be intricately planned and organised, with every track being utilised for its own reason. Throwing in tracks such as ‘The Trick Is to Keep Breathing’ and ‘Bleed Like Me’ with deep emotional meanings, and combining them with big hits such as ‘Stupid Girl’ and more recent tracks such as ‘No Gods No Masters’, there were no accidents and no second-thinking about what to perform. Everyone was at that show for their own needs, for the songs they each wanted to hear, and from the screams and cheers, it seems everyone was satisfied with what Manson and co settled on. A perfect encapsulation of their long career, pleasing every fan in every way.
Ending the show on the group’s number-one best-known single ‘Only Happy When It Rains’, accompanied by a screen of raindrops behind them, it feels akin to being rewarded for showing patience. The one song that got everyone in the seats singing and dancing, this is the one moment that brings everything together. It perfectly brings the night to its happiest end, and it phased everyone back into preparing for their return to the real world outside those building doors.
Garbage is one of those legacy acts that will never go away, never fade, never die. They’re a band so important to music: from their inception in the 90s, to their rockier moments in the 2000s, and now finding their way back with a fandom bigger than ever in the 2020s. As long as there is still one outspoken Scottish rockstar taking the stage to stick her middle finger up to the establishment and working to uplift all creatives in her spaces, rock will never die and Garbage will live on for the rest of time.
Words by Jo Cosgrove
Photography by Maryleen Guevara // IG: @maryleenphoto
