:: Garbage - Hordern Pavillion, Sydney - September 2005

By: Jade Farley

With a perfect mix of old favourites and new tracks off their latest album, ‘Bleed Like Me’, Garbage rocked their captivated audience the whole night. Butch Vig was consumed within his own world of hypnotic percussion to produce thumping drum beats that reverberated through the crowd. Duke Erikson and Steve Marker were also fantastic, but Shirley Manson, of course, really stole the show.

Shirley’s on-stage presence was mesmerising. She thrilled the crowd between songs by announcing that recent reports that the band are breaking up are, well, garbage, as they are just taking a very long break before returning with a new album. Swinging from angelically sweet, to super-vixen, to don’t-mess-with-me rock chic, Shirley charmed the crowd both with her performance and her between-song anecdotes.

The sound was almost studio-quality as they got the audience rocking (Sex Is Not The Enemy), then lulled us with soulful songs (It’s All Over But The Crying) before whipping us into a frenzy again with songs like Cherry Lips, Bad Boyfriend, Only Happy When It Rains, Why Do You Love Me, and the high-energy finale, Androgyny.