Garbage (thunder)storm the castle

Yesterday Cathy and I went to our second ever gig in Cardiff Castle. Three years ago we saw Bastille play there. This time we arrived shortly after a heatwave-induced thunderstorm.

We missed the opening act but we arrived in good time for the set from the main support band, Skunk Anansie. I even had time to buy a tour t-shirt and a decadent doughnut before the music started because Skunk Anansie were a bit late starting.

I really enjoyed their set. Although I said to Cathy that Skin, the lead singer, was in a totally unsuitable outfit considering the heat. She had to change out of her really heavy trousers after a few songs. 

Skin also went crowdsurfing twice, which impressed me. I discovered I liked several of the songs I didn't know more than the limited few I did know so I might well explore their back catalogue sometime.

The weather may have resulted in a few people not turning up as the performance area felt less crowded than I expected. I know it wasn't a sell out but I was pleasantly surprised at how much space we seemed to have without being ridiculoualy far back from the stage. 

Also, this is mega-gig week in Cardiff with massive concerts  every night at the Castle, Blackweir and the international stadium. There's obviously an upper limit on how many gig tickets can be sold in a week and it may be we have hit the upper cusp.

It was an interesting demographic in that the crowd seemed to skew more female. All three bands on the set list are fronted by women, which might have something to do with it. 

Garbage came on slightly earlier than expected, kicking off with the opening track off their latest album. They played several songs off that album (which I reviewed back in March) during the gig. I was surprised at some of them, including the gig finale when they played 'The Day That I Met God'. Amusingly, Shirley messed up the cue for that song and had a friendly go at Butch for leaving her hanging in an awkward silence. 

Garbage always used to be Shirley and three middle-aged dudes. Now it's Shirley and three old dudes. Shirley is still Shirley though, keeping time by fiercely stomping around in a circle during songs; amusing us with rambles and rants. 

The set list was a mix. They didn't play any of the poppier songs off Beautiful, but I was stoked to hear them play 'Control' from Not Your Kind of People. The old tunes were the bangers though. They gave 'Stupid Girl' a bit of a refresh and 'Only Happy When It Rains' was joyous. The singles off Version 2.0 are all strong songs and play well almost 30 years later. I was surprised they omitted 'Queer' from the set list and I was expecting them to play 'Witness to Your Love' but that didn't feature.

Overall, though, they played a cracking set. The new songs sounded better than I expected. I can tell Shirley really likes 'Chinese Fire Horse'. An unusual inclusion was 'It's All Over Bar the Crying', off the fourth album, Bleed Like Me. Shirley said they has never played it live before this tour, but she's a slightly unreliable historian. I enjoyed hearing it anyway and, of course, I sang along. 

Unusually, there was no encore as they played right up until the allotted curfew time. I quite enjoy the pantomime of cheering for a band to come back out but it didn't happen. It's hard to just turn the house lights on in an outdoor venue so they put up a message on the big screen about the exits. The castle keep glowed red and moody as we left.

Post-script

I know what you're thinking. How decadent was that doughnut? Well! Judge for yourself!

Album of the Month: Garbage, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light

I have tickets to see Garbage at Cardiff Castle this summer, which has prompted me to give a serious listen to another CD I got for Christmas, the album they released last year.

All being well, the castle gig will be my fourth time seeing Garbage after their debut album tour in 1996, and tours celebrating 20 years of their debut album in 2015, and 20 years of their second album in 2018. I blogged about the 2015 gig when I was clearly underwhelmed, judging by my gig review. I didn't blog about the 2017 gig, which was in the cavernous concourse beneath one of the stands in Ashton Gate stadium in Bristol.

More recently I "rediscovered" them when I got their 2-disc Anthology and then went on a buying spree of special edition re-releases. After I posted about the Anthology I even bought the 2-disc version of their first 'best of' that I had decided not to buy way back in 2007 (and blogged about not buying it!) It was cheap on eBay, so why not?

Let All That We Imagine Be The Light was a gift from my sister-in-law, Abby. It's got a striking cover, with a glowing octopus. The lettering is on a plastic sleeve that slips off the digipak, leaving just the octopus in all its cephalapod glory.

There are some recent pictures of the band inside the album sleeve. Shirley's got a blonde look now.

It's kind of fitting that Abby bought me this album because she was there when I first heard the band. I remember hearing my first Garbage song playing on a car radio. It was a sunny day and Abby was driving us somewhere around Newport Road in Cardiff. The band were brand new and were being profiled on a radio station and the track they played was Stupid Girl. I was instantly struck by their sound, went out and bought Only Happy When it Rains on a cassette single and that was the start of my fandom.

30 years later, listening to this album made less of an impact. There aren't many of the gut-punching power riffs that drove their debut album forward, and barely any of the catchy melodies that featured on their second or third album. The songs all run into each other and are a bit samey, both in tempo and style. 

Looking ahead to the summer, I'm sure some of these songs will be on the setlist in the castle. I'd guess they'll play the opening track, There's No Future in Optimism, the liveliest track, Chinese Fire Horse (Shirley's astronomical sign and a sweary angry warning not to disrespect her), the slightly bouncy Love to Give, and the closing track, The Day That I Met God. (That final track feels like such a Shirley song I would be amazed if they didn't play it.) 

I also wouldn't mind hearing them play the biting R U Happy Now. It seems increasingly relevant singing about the liars in power given how out of control the American president, and by extension, America, seems right now. However, there are four tracks in a row starting at track 3 that feel like filler tracks and that section of the album drags.

Overall, despite repeated listens, I don't feel many of the tracks have stuck in my head. I'll find out in the summer whether the new tracks will have enough live oomph to hold their own against the classic songs. 

Details

Year of release: 2025

Tracks: 10

Favourite track: Love to Give 

Track to skip: Have We Met (The Void) - the fourth track and the most filler of the filler tracks.

Rediscovering Garbage

This past Christmas my brother and sister-in-law, Dave and Esther, picked a CD off my wishlist and gave me Anthology, a collection of 35 Garbage songs drawn from their seven studio albums (plus some extra tracks like the James Bond theme song they recorded). 

It's the second 'Best of' compilation the band have released. I thought I owned a copy of their first one, but I can't find it on the CD shelf with the other Garbage CDs. When I read my blog post about it from back in 2007, I realised that I probably never bought it. That came as a bit of a surprise, as I'm a completist when it comes to certain bands but it seems I'd grown a bit disenchanted with Garbage back then.

On a recent long trip to North Wales (blogged here) I listened to the 'Best of' several times. Disc 2 introduced me to some of Garbage's more "recent" material. By recent, I mean from 2012 onwards, when they released Not Your Kind of People. 

I own Not Your Kind of People. It was a Christmas gift off my wishlist back in 2015, from my other sister-in-law, Abby. I had put it on my wishlist after going to see Garbage that year, on their tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album, and not recognising one of the songs in the encore. I'm pretty sure, now, that the song was Automatic Systematic Habit, which is the first song off Not Your Kind of People. 

It was the third time we had been to a gig in Manchester. I really remember Shirley Manson was wearing a gorgeous leather kilt with metal stud patterns on it. And also looking round at the crowd and realising that as a generation we had grown old together. 

I must have listened to Not Your Kind of People when I first received it, but clearly it didn't penetrate. But after hearing the singles from the album on the Anthology, I have been playing it the last few days. The first four tracks were released as singles and they are all absolute bangers. The song Control is potentially up there with my all time favourite Garbage songs.

Discovering an album ten and a half years after it was released, and seven years after receiving it shows that sometimes the best music is sitting on your shelf all along. It's also a better reason for owning a 'Best of' than just because I'm a saddo completist. 

It's also triggered my completism about the re-released deluxe editions of Garbage's early albums. In the weeks since Christmas I've ordered the special anniversary editions of the first three albums, with their bonus discs of b-sides and remixes. My stack of Garbage CDs has grown considerably. I might even have to get a copy of their first 'Best of' just for completeness's sake. 

When do bands release their best albums?

I was in a discussion about the best albums released by various bands and it got me thinking how there is probably a numerical sequence of "best" albums depending how long it took for bands to reach their peak. This musing also gave me a reason to fish out some CDs...

There's a sequence here

Often a band's first album becomes the high bar all their other music gets measured against. There are good reasons for this - those albums are usually developed over a length of time, forged in difficult circumstances and without too much input from commercial interests. But for other bands it takes a while...

In terms of first albums, it might not objectively be their "best" album musically, but I personally don't think the Killers have bettered Hot Fuss in their subsequent output.

Similarly, the only Oasis album I can be bothered listening to is Definitely Maybe. Garbage's eponymous first album is their best, with their attempt to copy it (Version 2.0) and try to do something different (subsequent albums) never reaching the same heights.

However, some bands only break through with their second album.

How to Make Friends and Influence People is Terrovision's best album in my opinion and it was their second album. It is a lot more polished than their debut. The same could be said for Nirvana's Nevermind, if grunge could ever be called polished. That's the album that helped Nirvana break through into popular consciousness and it became the seminal grunge album as a result.

Parklife was Blur's third album. It wasn't just their defining album, but also became the album that defined Britpop. As a band they tried to move away from it and from Britpop in subsequent albums, but never quite managed it. 

Fully Completely was The Tragically Hip's fourth album. It's widely regarded as their pinnacle and was a lot heavier than the preceding three albums. The Hip then went in a radical new direction for their next album, Day for Night, trying to find a new distinctive sound.

The Joshua Tree was U2's fifth album released as they became the ultimate 80s stadium band creating the ultimate stadium anthems. My favourite U2 album is actually their eighth one, Zooropa. (People go on about Achtung Baby as well and that was their seventh album but I think the hype about that album marking a 'new sound' for the band is over-rated. Zooropa was the step beyond that a lot of fans didn't really engage with.)

Metallica's "black album" was also their fifth album. Purist fans might disagree but this is the album with mainstream appeal and meant Metallica became more than just another metal band.

The cover wasn't all black!

Diesel and Dust was Midnight Oil's sixth album. Beds Are Burning was the international hit, which is strange because the pure Australian-ness that came through that song and the album should have made it less accessible than their previous records. 

American Idiot was Green Day's seventh album and relaunched the band. I think its their best, and I say that as someone who bought Dookie back when it was new. The individual members of Green Day had been through a lot of problems and in some ways this album was a hard reset. It gained them a huge new audience of young fans and even inspired a musical.

Automatic for the People was REM's eighth album. The debate over which album is their best album could last all night, but this is the album with several singles that remain their most played songs. 

So those are some best albums numbered one through eight. Does anyone want to nominate a band's ninth album as their best?

Bonus picture - getting out my CDs I discovered a relic sticker of a shop that doesn't exist any more!

Garbage - live in Manchester. The #20YearsQueer Tour

Nineteen years and nine months after we saw Garbage tour their eponymous debut album, Cathy and I went to Manchester last Friday to join in celebrating the album's 20th anniversary.

We've been to the Manchester Academy before to see the Tragically Hip. That room was a terrible venue. This room was bigger. But was also terrible.

The support were a band called Dutch Uncles. We missed half their set but I don't think we really missed anything. They were one of those bands you know will never be big as soon as you've heard one song with it's unnecessary tinkly piano in it. Most of their embellishments sounded like something that's been added because that's what proper musicians do.

(It was depressing looking around and realising the audience were probably all the same age as me and, wow, how old we've all grown.)

The idea behind this tour was they would play the songs off the first album and the b-sides they recorded around then. They played the entire first song - a b-side called Subhuman - backlit behind a sheet so it was like watching a shadow puppet show. I was a bit worried they'd do that all night, maybe as a way of preventing people from seeing how haggard Shirley Manson had gotten, but they dropped the curtain for Supervixen, which was the first track on the album and has a crashing intro. It's a great song to open a set with.

Shirley didn't look too bad considering she's pushing 50 and has lived rock and roll for about thirty years. What I noticed is that she really benefits from being in a band with three producers. She mumbles and shouts rather than singing. She also likes to talk drunk nonsense at the audience. We had two different stories about how she met the other members of the band for the first time. She went on for ages about what a wonderful musical city Manchester is, which, well, yeah, a lot of bands have come from there, but the repeated statements about what a great city it was got a bit boring after a while.

The gig took a while to get going but when they played Only Happy When it Rains, Stupid Girl and Vow the audience were bouncing along. Unfortunately they were the last three songs of the main set-list. Continuing the Manchester theme, they tried to work a bit of I Am the Resurrection by the Stone Roses into the end of Vow to end the show. It didn't really work.

The final song of the encore was great - When I Grow Up from the second album. There were a couple more b-sides before that though. And a song from their 2012 album, which somehow I'd missed. Apparently they have a new album out next year and they promised to tour again. I'd think twice about travelling so far to see them but if they play closer to home, then I might.

Overall it's one of those gigs that I'm glad I went to, more for the nostalgia and to say I've been rather than because it was a transcendental experience or anything.

Full set-list, because we have wikis for this sort of thing now. Huzzah.

#awfulsupergroups

This was a recent meme on Twitter that really made me smile. The basic premise is you combine two artists, bands or pop groups to form an ‘awful supergroup’.

A couple that really caught my eye were Rage Against Florence and the Machine and Nirvanarama.

I had a go myself. What if Macy Gray joined AC-DC? Macy DC. And The Future Soundgarden of London would be pretty bad too.

While driving the minibus on a recent youth weekend, I was chatting about it to a couple of fellow leaders, and it caught their imaginations too. Minty suggested Thirty Seconds to Bruno Mars, while Sam came up with the frankly brilliant Incubusted.

Since then, I’ve been thinking of some more. I’m not sure what Queens of the GarbAge would sound like. And I think I’d avoid anything by Liberty XTC, New Order on the Block or Freddie Mercury Rev. Ditto My Chemical Brothers Romance.

But my favourite contribution by a twitter-user was the person who just put Velvet Revolver, and added the hashtag #missing the point. Irony is alive and well.

What would your #awfulsupergroups be? Leave a comment!

“Best of” compilations

I’ve been buying Garbage’s records since they first came onto the scene in 1995, even though their output has been inconsistent (stunning debut, uninspiring follow up, interesting third album, mediocre fourth). Along the way they recorded a Bond theme and released several funky limited edition singles.

There was a time when I bought their singles religiously, on every format. When I ripped them onto my computer I ended up with over an hour’s worth of ‘exclusive’ tracks (b-sides to those of us who still remember b-sides). But I have to admit there was a time, round about their second album, when I was a) a bit skint, and b) less than impressed with them, so there are a couple of gaps in my collection.

So when they recently sent me details of a ‘Best of’ I was mildly interested. But, apart from a new single there was nothing on there I hadn’t already got, and the remix CD which came with the limited edition version of the album was full of old remixes off singles anyway.

The additional problem, and this is always the case with ‘best ofs’ is that any ‘greatest hits’ compilation usually means a collection of singles, not the genuine ‘best’ stuff. When I put together a Garbage playlist on my computer about half of my favourite tracks were album tracks.

I expect, being the canny marketers they are, sometime in the next year or so, Garbage will release a ‘live album’ (aka a second version of a Greatest Hits album), and possibly an album of ‘rare and exclusive’ tracks. In the meantime, instead of buying the album, I went out and bought the new single, a sweeping orchestral track which sounded more like their third album, Beautiful, than their last album.

But better than the single, and kind of proving my point about why singles aren’t always the ‘best’ stuff to put on a ‘best of’, is the b-side (sorry, exclusive track) called ‘Betcha’. The lyrics are similar to the Pussycat Dolls ‘Don’t cha’, which it is obviously spoofing. But when Shirley Manson snarls “Betcha wish your girlfriend was a slut like me”, it feels like their first stuff again.

"Bad" songs

I’ve been ripping my CDs onto my computer for a while now, enjoying being able to produce my own compilations and playlists. It’s my version of making a concept album. The other day I decided to arrange all the songs on my hard drive in alphabetical order, and started listening to them. Not only does this mean I have several different songs with the same title, but I’ve also discovered a list of “Bad” songs, and here they are:

Bad Actress – Terrorvision (not their finest hour from the album that was not their finest album, but still a decent song)
Bad Boyfriend – Garbage (the kick off track from Bleed Like Me, again not their finest album – hmm, I spot a trend)
Bad Day – REM (the bonus addition on the In Time greatest hits compilation, but pretty good tune, being towards the rockier end of the REM canon)
Bad Medicine – Bon Jovi (I’ve added this in even though it’s not on my computer. I’ve had this song so long my copy is on cassette!)
Bad Reputation – Halfcocked (off the Shrek soundtrack; it’s the song when Shrek takes out the opposition in the tournament)

Now, disdaining the obvious (‘Bad’ by Michael Jackson), what other ‘Bad’ songs could I add to this list. (Is that a challenge to you the reader or what?)