GIGOGRAPHY
Set lists from the 100 or so concerts I've attended over the past 10 years. More >

FROM THE
DISTRACTION GALLERY
Garbage
"Push It"
More music >

Also, check out the Straight Road to Kylie Party Mix.

As you may or may not know, I'm a stickler for grammar and factual accuracy. If you notice any errors on my site, you'd make my day by letting me know: corrections >

Some Interesting Experiences with Garbage

And anyone who knows how much I love Garbage probably also knows that I'll see Garbage in concert anywhere and everywhere I can. I first saw them in Orlando in 1998 for the Version 2.0 club tour (after which I was literally shaking with excitement on the drive home), then in Jacksonville, FL, in '99 for the MTV Campus Invasion tour.

But when I was nineteen, and Garbage's tour for their third album, beautifulgarbage, came nowhere near my home state of Florida, I wouldn't stand for it. I called up my good friend Veronica, who'd moved to NYC for college after high-school graduation, to see if I could visit for spring break and see Garbage with her at the Roseland Ballroom.

She, of course, was all for it.

Many a beach-house party with Veronica in attendance would end with her and me dancing and belting out the chorus to "When I Grow Up" from atop a coffee table. Point being, she was a big fan, just like me.

But the NYC show had sold out.

No matter! We decided we'd take the train into Philly for the day, then get the train back to NYC that same night.

Thus began a very interesting history of Garbage shows with Veronica in tow....

Garbage / Electric Factory / Philadelphia, PA / April 26, 2002

Okay, here's a lesson for you: If you're visiting NYC and you want to have a nice, leisurely, sightseeing-type day in Philadelphia...don't go to a BYOB Indian restaurant and then a bunch of bars the night before.

Veronica and I went out with a couple of her friends the night before—back when it seemed like a NYC bar that carded was weird—and it got ugly. Not just when her crazy friend got in a fight with an Asian girl outside this bar called Pangaea ("Yeah, that's right, keep standing in line, I'm sure you'll get in, you ugly bitch!") and had her Bacardi visor busted open. Not when all four Indian places tried to get us to go into their own individual dining rooms, and Veronica bargained with them, saying we'd only go in if we were allowed to smoke and bring our own 40s. (One guy was willing, and we tipped him well.)

	I'm talking ugly when toward the end of the night the bar we were in started spinning and I had to take a cab home by myself to her apartment, only to lie down and get more dizzy and decide that the back porch was a closer place to throw up than the bathroom, way at the other end of the pitch-black basement apartment.
So, yeah. Up-chucked Indian food everywhere. That's ugly! Veronica's roommate woke the two of us up the next morning by coming in and asking, "Um, who threw up on the back porch? Cuz it looks like confetti" to which Veronica bolted upright in bed and asked, confused, "Um...was it me?"

So, needless to say, not much sightseeing to be done in Philly that day.

We took the NJ Transit train to the end of the line, in Trenton, then the Philadelphia SEPTA commuter train from Trenton, all the way into Philly. All told, it was only a $13 train ride. Not bad at all.

We pretty much just had time to get a philly cheesesteak sandwich, then get in line at the Electric Factory for the show. This was back in the days when I insisted on getting to shows two hours before door time, to ensure a good spot in the front on the barricades.

Actually, I'd adopted this technique since after my first Garbage show, when I was only two or three people back in the crowd, but I was unable to hold my place 'cause of how rowdy and crazy the crowd got. If I had a barricade to hold on to, I had it made. I might have all the air pushed out of my lungs by the mass of 3,000 people straining to get to my spot, but if I could hold my death grip, I had the best seat in the house.

Anyway, so after two hours in line, an hour waiting for the opener, then sitting through the opener and the setup time, Garbage finally took the stage, to "Push It" (GOD that was an incredible opener) followed by my all-time favorite, "Temptation Waits." I think I was screaming like a little schoolgirl. Hey, ain't nothin' wrong with it!

This show pretty much goes down as my favorite G show of all time. They opened with two of my all-time favorite songs, and I really liked all the new tracks from the beautifulgarbage album. Shirley even played guitar on "So Like a Rose," which she just doesn't do anymore, and they played a rare B-side ("Girl Don't Come") from 1995, to which Shirley forgot the words. I vaguely remember screaming out the lyrics for her, but I doubt she heard me. I was close, though, so who knows?

Set List: 1. Push It 2. Temptation Waits 3. Androgyny 4. I Think I'm Paranoid 5. Special 6. Drive You Home 7. Breaking Up the Girl 8. Not My Idea 9. When I Grow Up 10. Hammering in My Head 11. So Like a Rose 12. Shut Your Mouth 13. Parade 14. Stupid Girl 15. Girl Don't Come 16. Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!) 17. Vow --Encore-- 18. Supervixen 19. Milk 20. Only Happy When It Rains So after a kickass encore of three debut-album songs (I didn't want it to end!), Veronica and I looked at our watches and hauled it out as fast as we could. It was around 11:30, and we had a midnight train to catch. The last train to New York that night, incidentally.

So, okay, a big difference between New York and Philly—well, New York and most cities, I guess—is that you can't just find a cab in Philly, especially when it's in a weird area of hollowed-out factories north of downtown and north of the interstate. The Electric Factory was an awesome venue, but not in the most convenient location.

Veronica and I literally run around the neighborhood, eventually deciding to run back toward the downtown area to try and find a cab. There are seriously NONE to be had. I was running on pure adrenaline at this point, having just seen my favorite band in the world play a blistering set just twenty feet away from me, and this whole part of the evening is kind of a blur. Somehow, we finally find a cab, with maybe—MAYBE—ten minutes until our train leaves.

Dude goes, like, SEVENTY all the way there. He takes the highways, passes every car on the road, and gets us there with two minutes to spare. Veronica and I throw a huge tip at him, speed into the station and up the stairs to the platform...

...JUST in time...

...to see our train pulling out of the station.

Veronica and I crumple to the ground, lying down on the platform and screaming, "Oh my GOD!!!!" "Fuck!" and all sorts of other gems, I'm sure. As we got to our feet, an elderly man passed by us and asked, "Where were you going?" to which Veronica replied, "FUCKING New York!"

We walked back into the station and to the McDonald's to figure out what the hell we're gonna do for the night. When I asked the cashier what time they closed (since it WAS midnight at this point), she said, "We're open twenty-four hours," and Veronica threw a twenty on the counter and said to me, "I got the first round."

The night...was a weird one.

Ever stayed up all night? After a previous night of heavy drinking, a very intense and draining concert, and fueled only with McDonald's food and cigarettes? Not recommended. I felt drunk and high and cracked out the whole time and I totally felt like dying, or at least purging myself (Veronica and I each ended up having two value meals, and then an extra side of fries by the end of the night—"Ohmigod, Nico, if I were homeless, I'd be SO FAT!"), but it was hysterical at the same time.

Everything we said and did was hilarious, and the night just couldn't seem weirder. The only other people in the restaurant were hobos (we each took twenty-minute guarded naps), and the only people to keep us company in the smoking-allowed atrium were a few mice scuttling about. When the Dunkin' Donuts opened at 5am and we were the first (and only) ones in line, Veronica was all groggy and like, "Hey, Nico, you wanna Funkin' Ho-nut?" Then the cashier had the nerve to hurry us, acting all impatient, and Veronica said, "Look, don't fuckin' rush me, buddy—we're here all night." When all that food piled up in my belly and I headed toward the restrooms to relieve myself, I thought I heard a scream come from the bathroom. I couldn't decide if it was just a weird hallucination or my imagination or something, but I decided to hold it until New York. (Gross, I know, but whatever.)

There's also a nice little detail in this story that might make some of you puke, but if you have a heart, it'll make you go, "Awwww." I called my then-new-boyfriend Billy (we'd been going out for a mere five weeks), who was working the night shift at Denny's, and left him a long, sweet, and loving message. Then Veronica got on the phone and sang some Ani DiFranco to him, which is just about the nicest thing anyone could do for Billy. :-) A lil' mention of this actually made its way into Billy's first book, Talking in the Dark.

So, by 9am, we were back in New York, practically sleepwalking to her East Village apartment.... And they were out of toilet paper!!!! (But it was all very worth it. It always is.)

That was in Spring of 2002.

In Summer of 2004, I joined Veronica in NYC when I moved there with Billy.

In Spring of 2005, Garbage's fourth, Bleed Like Me, was released. I saw them in Philly again, this time at the Theater of the Living Arts, a much smaller and more intimate venue than the Electric Factory (very exciting—my friend Rachel flew up from Tampa to see the show and spend the weekend with me). Then I saw them a few days later in NYC at the Hammerstein Ballroom with Billy and Veronica.

Nothing too unusual about those shows (except that Blondie was up in one of the VIP boxes at the NYC show).

Then Garbage played at the HFStival in Baltimore. So, why the hell not? Veronica and I rented a car and drove down for the day (no more trains!), had a bunch of Sparx and nasty domestic beer, and had a wonderful day.

So after seeing them twice in April (Philly, NYC), once in May (Baltimore), when it was announced that Garbage was to take place in the first-ever AmsterJam Festival on Randall's Island in NYC (in August), I didn't expect that anyone would want to go with me.

Garbage with Peaches / AmsterJam Festival / Randall's Island / New York, NY / August 19, 2005

AmsterJam was the first ever rock/rap mash-up concert festival, and it had all sorts of acts lined up: Hector El Bambino, Fat Joe, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wyclef, 311, Snoop Dogg, Garbage, etc.... So, on top of the fact that I'd seen Garbage three times in the past few months, I had no idea: a) how long Garbage would get to play, and b) what loser rap artist they were gonna be matched up (mashed up?) with. At first, I thought it was gonna be Mos Def (whose actually pretty well respected), but then he dropped out of the festival, and I was afraid Garbage would be paired with....

FAT JOE!!!! ("Lean back... Lean back... Lean back...") Is it necessary to point out that Fat Joe is so below Garbage?!?!

No, but I guess I did it anyway.

But somehow—I'm guessing cans of Coors Light in V's apt. were involved—we decided to give it a try.

I am SO glad we did. Because at the last minute—literally, a couple weeks before the show—it was announced who Garbage was going to be mashing-up with: PEACHES!!!!!!!!!

If any of you don't know Peaches, do you know that song on Mean Girls when Cady walks into the Halloween Party? That's "Operate." Or the "suckin' on mah titties like you wanted me, callin' me" song? That's "Fuck the Pain Away." Lovely stuff, for realz.

Peaches is amazing. Electroclash Canadian bisexual goddess who's also based in Berlin, she makes some of the most raunchy, fun, nasty, amazing-to-dance-to music there is out there. It's all very basic-at-times, but simply a lot.of.fun. To give you an idea of what to expect from Peaches, she did a cover of the Black Eyed Peas' hit "My Humps," but changed it to "My Dumps," and the made the lyrics extra-skatological to reflect the new title. Classy, lovely stuff. (She also has, in the past, had strap-on-wearing bearded-lady backup dancers for her shows....) Needless to say, the prospect of seeing Peaches paired with my favorite bad-girl supervixen Shirley Manson onstage made me...um...WET!!!! Thank GOD no Fat Joe/Garbage mash-up was happening.

So Veronica and I—who at this point lived only 6 blocks apart—woke up early and took the subway down to Harlem, then a cross-town bus to East Harlem, then the "special" bus to Randall's Island, which is this random little island sandwiched between Uptown Manhattan and Queens. Pretty much all it has is a gigantic mental hospital, and grounds for concert-festival events.

It was a great day. Dead of summer, but very cloudy and only in the eighties and not too humid at all. In mid-August in NYC, this is the best you can hope for, really. And I was glad to have Mother Nature on our side that day.

Gates were supposed to open for the festival at 10am, but they didn't open till 11, at which point, Veronica and I bolted to the Heineken  tent. (AmsterJam was a Heineken-sponsored event. Heineken apparently follows me wherever I go.)

But it was Sunday. In badass New York Fuckin' City. No beer till 12, says the woman guarding the entrance to the Heineken tent.

So Veronica and I told her, Fine—we'd wait there till 12, and soon a big line was forming behind us, and the woman just gave up and let us in. Ka-ching! How many Heinies were we allowed each? Two? Do it!

By 2pm, when Garbage was scheduled to come onstage, we'd had somewhere between 4 and 6 beers each, and were super psyched. It was great. Because most people weren't really there for Garbage and Peaches (hence the 2pm stage time), so we basically walked all the way to the barricade with no problems whatsoever. The crowd was pretty sporadic, not too crowded at ALL, and there were no comfort issues to be had...except for the Porto-Potties thing. ANYWAY...

Garbage takes the stage, sans Peaches, and the crowd—what there was of it, at this point, anyway—went pretty nuts. Say what you will about Garbage losing its popularity—you put them in a festival, even at 2pm, and they still get a hell of a reception. They launched right into "Bad Boyfriend," which is a really hard, rocky, and fun song—a fantastic opener. Next came "Not My Idea," which is a song from their first album that wasn't even a single that at that point they hardly played live anymore, so that was a big treat.

Veronica and I were having so much fun, jumping and singing and dancing all around, since we had so much space around us.

I'd say this probably goes down as one of my favorite Garbage experiences, for the sheer fact that it was outside, it was comfortable, I was pretty blitzed, and I got to dance as wildly and crazily as I wanted. Especially when they played "Cherry Lips," which is this sort of tongue-in-cheek bubblegum-pop song that I'm surprised they played at a rock/rap mash-up festival.

Whatever. They're Garbage. They can do whatever they want.

So, we got a full TWELVE Garbage-only songs, which already was four more than they'd done at the HFStival in Baltimore, and then Peaches saunters onto the stage, all metallic-silver coochie-cutters and thigh-high slut-boots, wild and frizzy humid-hair, and ... nastiness. "Peaches is dirtier than Garbage!" she screamed to the crowd. "Remember that!" (She didn't let us forget it.) The next four songs were Garbage/Peaches mash-ups, and they were all freakin' WONDERFUL. I was seriously in hog-heaven here.

The first mash-up was Garbage's hard-rocking "Why Do You Love Me," with the chorus replaced by the chorus to Peaches' "Rock Show." Ugh. Having Shirley singing Peaches' song and vice versa was just too fun. V and I were going ballistic. And the blending of the two songs was absolutely seamless. VERY well done, which is more than I can say (and what the reviews said) about the other mash-ups of the day.

I didn't think it could get better after that first mash-up, but it did.

Garbage's "Shut Your Mouth" mixed with Peaches' "Shake Yer Dix." Even the titles go well together—I couldn't believe I hadn't anticipated this lil' marriage of songs. If any of you are familiar with the songs, they basically swapped choruses again, but during the heavy guitar notes right after the Garbage chorus, Shirl and Peaches traded off Peaches lines, singing to each other:

Shirley: "Are the motherfuckers ready for the fatherfuckers?"
Peaches: "Are the fatherfuckers ready for the motherfuckers?"
And back and forth, and back and forth, and lovin' every minute of it.

The crowd was really getting into the collaborations at this point, and Shirl and Peaches were being just adorable to watch. Singing right into each other's mouths practically, writhing their sweaty bodies all over each other, lots of playfulness and smiling and laughing. It was perfect that I was right up front, because I got to see that they were enjoying the experience just as much as we were.

The third mash-up was "Push It" with Peaches' well-known opus "Fuck the Pain Away," which also worked really well.

The best part of this performance was the very end of the song, where instead of the normal one, final "Push it" lyric being said, Peaches and Shirley stood together center stage and just BELTED OUT, like, five of em: "Push it. Push it! PUSH it! PUSH IT! PUSH IT!"

As a finale, they performed a quick version of Peaches' "I Don't Give a...", with Shirley singing the "I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation" lyric, and Peaches screaming the "I don't give FUUUCK! I don't give a FUUUCK!"

Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound necessarily classy or musically superior or anything, but c'mon. This is a Peaches song on a Heineken-fueled summer's day, and it was a perfect way to round out the set.

Set List 1. Bad Boyfriend 2. Not My Idea 3. Boys Wanna Fight 4. Sex Is Not the Enemy 5. Metal Heart 6. Bleed Like Me 7. Vow 8. I Think I'm Paranoid 9. Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!) 10. Stupid Girl 11. Only Happy When It Rains 12. When I Grow Up 13. Why Do You Love Me (with Peaches' Rock Show) 14. Shut Your Mouth (with Peaches' Shake Yer Dix) 15. Push It (with Peaches' Fuck the Pain Away) 16. Peaches' I Don't Give A...

So, yeah... After this, Veronica and I were pretty much wiped out. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around all the food stalls and drinkin' more Heineken, and occasionally listening to the other bands. We hung out in the crowd to hear 311 play, but we weren't over impressed with any of the other mash-ups. (In fact, in most magazine reviews of the festival, it was noted that Garbage and Peaches were the only acts that truly seemed to "get it," and that the other pairings were just weird and disjointed.)

By around 7 or 8, Veronica and I had massive Heinie-headaches, and decided to not even stick around for the headlining mash-up of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg, and went home.

Fun side note: I guess we must've looked pretty messed-up, because some lovely ASSHOLE NYPD cops decided to have a little fun with us. When we asked them for directions on how to cross over the Triboro Bridge back into Manhattan (don't ask why we decided to do this—we're stupid), they laughed and gave us directions...to the MENTAL HOSPITAL!!!!

Jackasses.

We just took the bus home after that.

That about wraps it up, kids. Hope I didn't bore the shit out of you.

Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear from you. Send me an e–mail >

COMMENTS