Shirley's shirt indicates there may be hope for me yet, as does her comment that only female Garbage fans seem interested... and no, I'm not afraid of tall redheads.
But this is supposed to be a musical review and not a drooling groupie mash note, and one of the tricks I learned from my brother is you get the best sound next to the sound board. So that was the spot, and there was a very young girl parked behind it next to the sound guy. Aside: It's not bad going to a rock concert and not being the OLDEST or BALDEST person there (and I'm not even counting the band in this case). Aside 2: You know you're back home in Wisconsin when it's May Day and it's SNOWING.
The opening act, the Dead 60s, had a sort of 80sish rock-ska-reggae thing going on like they'd found their older brother's copy of London Calling. If I were younger I'd probably work in a Sublime reference, but I'm not so I won't.
They played 8 or 10 songs and kept us Garbage folks entertained.
Then the main attraction hit the stage to the tune of Johnny Cash's version of Trent Reznor's "Hurt."
I can't really analyze the performance too much - my first time seeing one of my favorite bands. They were loud, I loved it, Shirley has a, uh, strong stage presence, and there was a neat hometown vibe to it. Here's a rough set list:
First four songs: Queer, Bad Boyfriend, Stupid Girl, Supervixen
Then some chitchatting with the audience, at which point we learned taht the little girl behind the board was Steve's five year old daughter.
Somewhere in mid set I lost track of the order but we heard: Sex Is Not The Enemy (with lots of text flying by Zooropa style on video screens), Vow, I Think I'm Paranoid, When I Grow Up, Push It, Bleed Like Me, Hammering In My Head, and I'm Only Happy When It Rains. We were supposed to sing along the "pour some misery down on me" part but I couldn't quite tell if we did or not. We also heart Shirley and Duke sing Happy Birthday to a band friend named Craig - you got the feeling that there were a lot of people there who had known the guys at least 20 years.
The main set ended with Why Do You Love Me and we all did the cheer for an encore ritual. The encore set started with Metal Heart, which surprised me a little as a choice from the new album. Then they did Cherry Lips which I expected because the techs had soundchecked the chimes part on Duke's keyboard - but by that point in the show I was wondering if they had disowned the entire beautifulgarbage album. The closer was Right Between The Eyes. Shirley left the stage when the vocal finished while the hometown boys soaked up the last cheers, ending with a very happy looking Butch Vig alone on stage waving to lots and lots of old friends.
The noise that keeps me awake managed to ring in my ears long enough to keep me awake and get me back to Iowa City way past my normal bedtime. Today is recuperation day...
Music
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