The US alternative icons around Shirley Manson are playing in Zurich on June 28. Time for a reunion with a band that has healed many wounds and deserves much more.
The thing is personal. I was 23, the tears after Kurt Cobain's death not yet completely dry. Musically, the wonderful Smashing Pumpkins kept me afloat. And then this song splashed out of my three-way speaker: «Only Happy When It Rains». The lyrics hit the center of my adolescent soul. Add to that Shirley Manson's sweetly softened voice, the sluggish yet powerful guitar, the driving beats. Garbage hit me hard. The album is still in my personal top 10 of the debut album charts to this day.
The band brought me out of my grunge melancholy. It was a hot late summer, love was perfect. But two months later, I fell head over heels in love with the endless anthems of Brit-pop. Back then, two unconventional brothers from Manchester dropped a record with the cryptic name «(What's the Story) Morning Glory?». I had to leave Garbage. It was hard for me, but the band became something of a musical one-night stand. One where you know you could have done more. If it hadn't been for Oasis. But hey: «Don't Look Back in Anger.»
Garbage released seven albums later. I cut them all. With the melancholy of the one who left. And the benevolent joy of the one who loved. The gaps between the albums were sometimes a little too long to keep the band on a continuous loop. But: all very solid, good music. Musically and in terms of content, they have aged with me while remaining young, beautiful and dark. The last album «Let All That We Imagine Be the Light» is a really good piece of work. It takes me back to the past and yet is still in the present. Now the band is playing live in Switzerland again. Time for me to pay off old debts. And perhaps also to say sorry that I simply left back then. I'm really looking forward to seeing them again!