There’s nothing quite like the drama of a prodigal’s return. ‘I’ve been singing in this venue since I was ten years old,’ announces Shirley Manson, staring down nearly half a century of personal history at Edinburgh’s ornate Usher Hall.
The fact that Garbage’s lead singer made the United States her primary residence many years ago lends this homecoming concert added potency. There are shout-outs to her dad, a ‘Happy Birthday’ serenade for her sister and what looks like a tear or two at the start of the encore.
A ‘badass’ attitude is so sleekly applied it seems like a Che Guevara T-shirt in the racks at M&S
For all the sentiment, it was obvious that Manson was right to leave not just Edinburgh, but the UK. In the mid-1990s, instead of joining her peers to splash around in the shallows of Britpop, she decamped to the US to form Garbage with three American producers/musos, Butch Vig, Steve Marker and Duke Erikson.
Manson swapped the chance of becoming a bit-part player in Cool Britannia for the more sustained rewards of global success – and it paid off, even if the transaction has left her without any tangible constituency. Garbage are perhaps the ultimate no-scene band. During their heyday, they avoided any meaningful cultural affiliations – and still seem oddly disconnected from everything but themselves.
Their stock-in-trade is fussily uglified pop music, a blend of grunge, alternative rock, electronica and punk which is a little too on-point, too shiny and too contrived to fully convince. Likewise, a much trumpeted ‘badass’ attitude is so sleekly applied it feels like the equivalent of a Che Guevara T-shirt hanging in the racks at M&S. In Edinburgh, ‘Bleed Like Me’ is introduced by Manson as the band’s signature anthem for misfits and weirdos, yet the song itself is almost comically orthodox.
On record – and indeed on paper – Garbage are hard to love. Yet on stage they deliver, thanks almost entirely to their singer. Manson is a terrific and forceful front-woman, imperious in big bovver boots, dishevelled feathers and a long, tight ponytail. Pacing in circles and pounding her chest, she stomps and stalks the stage: Artemis by way of St Trinian’s. Her voice contains traces of Patti Smith, P.J. Harvey and Siouxsie Sioux – Garbage perform a faithful cover of the latter’s ‘Cities in Dust’ late in the set – but its essential character is all her own. She sings with power and control, adding a soulful snarl to otherwise tightly drilled techno-rock. We can hear every word; not necessarily a good thing on crassly socio-political material such as ‘Godhead’.
Manson brings the show, but it helps that Garbage have a greater number of enjoyable songs than I remember. Not just the established hits – ‘Stupid Girl’, ‘I Think I’m Paranoid’, ‘Only Happy When it Rains’ – but the bruised beauty of ‘The Trick is to Keep Breathing’, the spacey, unsettling torch song psychedelia of ‘Milk’ and the propulsive ‘Wolves’, from their most recent album, No Gods No Masters. There are others, too. Still, the biggest cheer of the night comes when Manson announces that England have lost to Spain in the Euros final. The local heroine still knows a surefire hometown hit when she hears it.
Elsewhere in the Scottish capital, festival season has begun. August is the apotheosis, of course, cramming in the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
But the cultural crazy season is already upon us, kicking off with the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival. Aside from the traditional Mardi Gras-style celebration in the Grassmarket, its carnival spirit only slightly dulled by grey skies and drizzle, the opening weekend highlight was a dazzling set by Fergus McCreadie, the folk-infused jazz pianist who recently released his fourth album, Stream. His third, Forest Floor, won the Scottish Album of the Year award in 2022 and was nominated for the Mercury Prize.
For this show, McCreadie augmented his regular trio (David Bowden on bass, Stephen Henderson on drums) with additional percussion (Graham Costello), three saxophones (Matt Carmichael, Harry Weir, Paul Towndrow) and a trumpet (Laura Jurd), to perform as an octet.
The results perhaps leaned a little less heavily than is typical on McCreadie’s traditional influences, which come through more overtly in a smaller group. As an eight-piece, the musicians focused more on rhythmic repeating grooves and circular improvised horn figures, the combination building up quite a head of steam.
Two core elements of McCreadie’s rare talent, however, remain constant: his piano playing, ranging from languid, fluid ripples to jagged Jarrett-like flourishes, was rarely flashy but never less than compelling; and the promise of transcendence, glimpsed throughout, was eventually fulfilled.
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