Review | Garbage is Anything But

It was a nod to the ’90s night on June 7 at the Santa Barbara Bowl, with a double headliner British invasion featuring Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and Garbage, as well as the opener, the critically acclaimed Canadian rockers Metric.

This tour was the first time Gallagher and his High Flying Birds have hit the road in North America since 2019, and much of their setlist was from the band’s recently released album Council Skies, including the title track, with the lovely lyrics, “Catch a falling star and we might drink to better days / Hiding what we find behind the sun / Thinking of what might have been / And what the future says / Waiting on a train that never comes,” as well as the songs “Pretty Boy,” “Easy Now,” “We’re Gonna Get There in the End,” and “Open the Door, See What You Find.” 

Gallagher’s reputation as a great songwriter is well earned, although I couldn’t help wishing he’d bring his own voice a little more to the forefront.

Not surprisingly, as solid as the High Flying Birds’ songs are, the crowd was much more excited to hear Oasis songs. Though they split in 2009, Oasis, featuring Gallagher and his brother Liam, remains hugely influential in British music and culture, and their songs, including “The Masterplan,” “Going Nowhere,” “Little by Little,” “Live Forever,” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” were my favorites of their set.

While both Garbage and High Flying Birds come from the same era, the enjoyably aggressive, take-no-prisoners, grunge-punk vibe of Garbage was an odd mix with their relatively mellow predecessors. Shirley Manson commands the stage with such a dynamic rocker chic energy that both the noise level and the excitement level amped up considerably for this half of the show. The entire Garbage set — from “Supervixen” to “Stupid Girl,” “The Men Who Rule the World,” and “Beloved Freak” — was awesome. 

In addition to their own long list of beloved hits, Garbage did Manson’s idol Siouxsie and the Banshees proud with a cover of “Cities in the Dust,” a 1985 song that I also really love. Manson said Siouxsie Sioux was “arguably the woman who’s had the most influence on me besides my mother and grandmother,” and that same post-punk vibe was strong throughout the night (I was also getting some serious Deborah Harry vibes). 

Garbage started their night strong and finished up even stronger, with Manson strutting into the stands performing “Only Happy When It Rains” (one of my personal favorites), and returning to the stage for “Vow,” followed by their own vow to return to perform again in Santa Barbara soon. As Manson said of the Bowl’s 10 p.m. curfew, “It feels like a quick, fast fuck. We’ll make it up to you next time.”  

They did “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)” as their final encore, and I was definitely sad to see them go.