Garbage Almost as Cool as It's Been

When Shirley Manson stood at the center of the stage with a shiny black leather dress, leopard-print stockings, and newly-dyed candy pink hair (somewhat reminiscent of Scarlett Johansson’s wig in “Lost in Translation”), it was clear that she was still the “it” girl of rock n’ roll, and one of the coolest rock stars overall. Together with the rest of Garbage, she presented a powerful, hit-packed, if somewhat over-the-top, performance at House of Blues on July 28.

The band started the concert with an immediately statement-making mix of bombastic guitar riffs and exhausting drumbeats, and the high energy level lasted the whole evening. Except for, surprisingly, the first verse of “Only Happy When It Rains,” every song was played at maximum volume, challenging the expressive power of the instruments, featuring often impassioned dialogues between the guitars. And Manson’s repressed roars-to-full-blown screams were so devoted that two-thirds through in the concert she had to borrow a hair band from an audience member as a result of being too sweaty.

Although in their 50s, the band members still managed to uphold their mantle as the “queerest of the queer.” The urgency in Garbage’s songs is explained by their ambition to give voice to a generation—a generation living underground, ignored by the mainstream, and comfortable with their label as “garbage.” For decades, Manson and her band were dedicated to justifying the existence of this alternative way of living, and when they sang “Sex is Not the Enemy,” it still had a manifesto-ish power fueled by revolutionary spirit. In the middle of the concert, Manson gave a prolonged speech calling for society’s tolerance for any kind of love and sex as long as it was not nonconsensual or underage. Intentional or not, the song and the speech echoed with the United States Supreme Court’s jurisdiction that same-sex marriage is protected by the Constitution. It makes one ponder, once again, on the ingrained political and social trappings of the rock genre.

Another image that Garbage developed over the years with their music is that of a cool girl who keeps her feelings to herself and remains skeptical of love due to past trauma, and, at the concert in House of Blues, this side of Garbage made it into the setlist through songs like “Bleed Like Me” and “Stupid Girl.” However, these songs were mostly rendered with the indiscriminately energetic guitar riffs and furious drumbeats that characterized the concert’s sound. While this might just have been a choice made for the particular atmosphere of a live concert, the chaotic sound embraced by the band unfortunately overshadowed the fragility, sensitivity, and bitterness of Manson’s vocals — one of the most unique and precious treasures of Garbage. Their portrait of a rock girl both longing for love and scared of love is one that is still very relevant today, and can still be found in many popular personalities, both real and fictional, in our world (think Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”)

In fact, it is dubious whether Garbage’s whole effort of being a rock ‘n’ roll powerhouse was effective. After all, they have never been famous for their instrumentals. No matter how thick their basslines or how resounding their guitar solos, they were still clearly no AC/DC. And they shouldn’t be—the charm of Garbage is not in the kind of running-around-the-stage-half-naked energy they chose for the concert, but in the whatever-I-don’t-care understatement that permeates their work, and it is important for them to keep expanding this persona that made them who they are. After all, they are “not your kind of people.” At the concert, a gesture Manson made repeatedly—putting her hands in the pockets of her dress, checking on the audience—actually served as a perfect counterpoint to running around the stage, and the poppiness of their studio albums is a great match of this image. However, at least at the House of Blues, Manson and her band seemed to be leaning a bit too far on the heavy rock side.

Almost a year ago, Garbage held a concert in Chicago where the setlist drew almost exclusively from their debut album, and it was stunning how edgy and stylish its 1995 materials sounded twenty years later. Garbage is cool. They have always been this way, and it has never been necessary for them to try to prove it with numbing instrumentals. After all, the moment when you try to be cool, you stop being cool.

—Staff writer Tianxing V. Lan can be reached at tianxing.lan@thecrimson.com.