GarbageIveagh Gardens, Dublin\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a slightly rubbish moment early in Garbage\u2019s<\/a> exhilarating show at Iveagh Gardens<\/a>, Dublin<\/a>, when singer Shirley Manson<\/a> intimates that this might be the band\u2019s final ever performance. Explaining that the concert marks the end of the grunge-pop trailblazer\u2019s European tour, she adds that it might also be the end of Garbage.<\/p>\n \u201cThis particular evening feels both heavy and glorious at the same time \u2013 the duality of which is not lost on anyone on the stage tonight,\u201d Manson says, shortly after Garbage kick off the night with dystopian floor-filler There\u2019s No Future In Optimism.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t really know what\u2019s going to happen with Garbage moving forward \u2013 for a lot of different reasons. Most pertinently of course are the changes to the music industry, which causes a lot of problems for what I call the middle-class band. We have been very successful. But not like the oligarch kind of successful that the music both supports and applauds and makes the most space for. I\u2019m not trying to sound sad \u2013 we are not sad.\u201d<\/p>\n She gulps back a sob as the audience gasps (those who are paying attention: many are alas here largely for a drink and a natter). But if her remarks are a shock, they will not come as a surprise to Garbage fans who have been keeping tabs on the group. They follow on from comments Manson made last year that Garbage would no longer tour the US, due to \u201cthe thievery of the record industry\u201d.<\/p>\n If this is a farewell for a band that have sold more than 17 million albums and headlined festivals around the world, it is, at least, a searing sign-off. While not quite chock-full of hits \u2013 there are five songs from their solid latest album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light \u2013 it is, in every other sense, a celebration of Garbage\u2019s 30-year history of romping, stomping pop-rock.<\/p>\n Monster-truck riffs rev their engines around Manson\u2019s take-no-prisoners voice, and both the bangers and the ballads are fuelled by the group\u2019s mastery of huge, shin-kicking choruses. It is a dazzling onslaught built on Garbage\u2019s unique history as an alliance between three champion knob-twiddlers and a charismatic singer from half the world away. <\/p>\n The story of Garbage is one of unlikely connections and a collaboration forged in the glory days of 1990s alternative rock. At the time the band released their first album in August 1995, drummer Butch Vig was a megastar producer for Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins, while bandmates Duke Erikson and Steve Marker were studio hotshots in their own right. They were, in other words, the Stock Aitken Waterman of grunge \u2013 which sort of made Edinburgh-born Manson, who they had spotted singing on MTV with her band, Angelfish, the goth-pop Kylie.<\/p>\n