Garbage: Not Clowning Around

Garbage w/ Cigarettes After Sex
Paramount Theatre, Seattle, WA
09.19.16

If you have ever had the pleasure to see anyone perform at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, you know the historic venue is nothing short of amazing. There isn’t a bad seat in the house.

Uniquely named opening band, Cigarettes After Sex, seemed a polarizing choice for the night. Typically, an opener is chosen to excite the crowd for the headliner. However, the El Paso based Texans pretty much lulled the entire confused crowd into a trancelike state. Their ambient pop music was so mellow and different, with very little movement on stage from the four musicians that I found them hard to absorb.

Garbage was touring their new release Strange Little Birds, and I love me some Garbage. Without going into a vast history lesson in music, Seattle should know whom producer/drummer Butch Vig is. If you still don’t know who he is, check the album credits on Nirvana’s Nevermind. Vig and guitarist Duke Erikson have been in several bands along with guitarist/sound engineer Steve Marker before forming Garbage in 1993 with Scottish singer Shirley Manson.

When the band took the stage for “Subhuman,” Manson walked out to the screaming crowd with such moxie and attitude it was mesmerizing from the start. The stage looked so huge with Manson front and center, commanding the adoring crowd, while her bandmates kept to the shadows, emerging from time to time.

With a career spanning over 23 years, Garbage have a lot of hits. Live, they were on fire, just rocking and constantly moving. While Erikson and Marker came out to the stage edge several times, you just couldn’t keep your eyes off of Manson. As she belted out “Stupid Girl,” “Blood of Poppies,” and “Shut Your Mouth,” her voice and attitude were distinctive. While you never hear her beautiful Scottish accent in the songs, when she addresses the packed crowd you get it.

One of the funniest moments of the night was when a clown in the crowd was brought up on stage. As she ran over to hug Manson, everyone laughed as the noticeably disturbed singer backed up and said “Who the fuck are you, you stay over there.” The crew brought out longtime tech Michael – affectionately known as “Pork Chop” – and the clown (who we found out, via probing questions from Manson, was named Harmony Lyric) took the mic and sang happy birthday along with the crowd to “Pork Chop.”

It was all hilarity as they brought out a birthday cake and thanked Michael for taking care of the band for all these years, all a well-orchestrated plan executed by his wife. I guess the band expected a strippergram, but got the clown instead. As they all walked off stage, Manson told the entire crowd that Michael can punish his wife in his bunk later. Overall, it was a fantastic show. If you had a chance to catch them on this US run you were lucky! Garbage rock.

Garbage Set List
Subhuman
I Think I’m Paranoid
Stupid Girl
Automatic Systematic Habit
Blood Of Poppies
Milk
Sex Is Not The Enemy
Blackout
Magnetized
Shut Your Mouth
Doomed
Why Do You Love Me
Night Drive Loneliness
Bleed Like Me
Cherry Lips
Vow
Only Happy When It Rains
Push It