Garbage, Rock City, Nottingham

The Garbage gig which will forever be remembered for the meltdown and car crash at the end.

Estrons opened, the sound wasn’t great from where we were under the stairs and despite the fact I could see some good things I didn’t think much of them if I’m honest, having said that it wouldn’t put me off seeing them again, which will of course be in Newcastle tomorrow.

Garbage hit the stage around 9, taking a brave decision and starting with 2 b-sides before tearing into Temptation Waits. I’d already seen the setlist and was worried about the order of the songs, back in 98 and 99 I never noticed how slow the b-sides were during Version 2.0, I wish they took the decision to plant some of the debut tracks in the setlist as well, after all they were part of the shows back then.

The set as a whole was pretty good with Butch, Duke, Steve and Eric all playing to a high standard, then something strange happened during When I Grow Up. Shirley started the song with the 3rd line, she then had mistakes during You Look So Fine,

The Encore consisted of The Trick Is To Keep Breathing and their cover of David Bowie’s Starman. The Trick didn’t seem to have as many issues as the previous songs but Starman was truly dreadful. It took 3 attempts to finish the song, none of which were great.

After the show I was furious with what I’d just witnessed, I really wasn’t happy at all, a lot of the regulars at Garbage shows weren’t having a bad word said of course. Later I did mellow a bit, but I think that’s down to the fact that I’ve seen them so many times, and had also had a few beers myself that day. I still felt for anyone who was seeing them for the first time.

The day after Shirley tweeted an apology, stating that she’d mixed alcohol and some heavy pain killers. During the show she also mentioned that she’d had an argument with her father during the day.