Beautiful Garbage tour

The Beautiful Garbage tour was the third world concert tour cycle by American/Scottish alternative rock group Garbage, which took the band throughout North and Central America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand in support of its third album Beautiful Garbage.

The Beautiful Garbage tour takes in headline performances, support performances for U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers and No Doubt, and slots at rock festivals and radio shows around the world. A number of notable acts supported Garbage throughout the run of the tour, including White Stripes, Kelli Ali, Queen Adreena and Abandoned Pools.

The tour was hampered by problems with the health of the band, with singer Shirley Manson suffering from throat problems and drummer Butch Vig being taken off sick twice, first with Hepatitis A and then with Bell's Palsy. While some shows that Manson could not perform were cancelled, Vig was replaced at first with Matthew Chamberlain and then with Matt Walker, to prevent disruption to the tour dates.

Itinerary

Garbage marked the release of Beautiful Garbage by performing an in-store set in Chicago's Virgin Megastore on October 2, 2001. Garbage began touring the album as the opening act on the third leg of U2's Elevation Tour from October 12 in South Bend, Indiana, into Canada and through to 24th in New York City.^[1] Prior the last show, Vig collapsed from the effects of food poisoning and contracting Hepatitis A.^[2] Rather than cancelling the scheduled shows, Garbage recruited Matt Chamberlain to replace Vig for the remainder of the year.^[3] Garbage performed a series of underplayed headlining shows in Europe during November, beginning in Trondheim, Norway and ending in London, United Kingdom, on November 14.^[4] Garbage then returned to North America for the final Elevation tour Southern State shows, from Kansas City, Missouri on the 27th through to the last show in Miami, Florida on December 2.^[5] At the last show, U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. played drums on "Only Happy When It Rains".^[6] Garbage wrapped up 2001 by performing at the Not So Silent Night radio festival in Los Angeles, California.^[7]

The Beautiful Garbage tour started in earnest in January 2002 in New Zealand and Australia, when Garbage joined the Big Day Out rock festival.^[8] In between the festival shows, Garbage headlined two concerts in Melbourne and Sydney.^[9] Garbage then spent ten days in Japan, performing four headline shows in Osaka and Tokyo.

Garbage launched a headline UK tour on April 1 in Portsmouth, a run that included an acoustic performance in Edinburgh and headlining MTV's 5 Night Stand.^[10] The band were supported on the UK dates by Kelli Ali. Beyond the UK, the run extended to a number of shows in Cologne, Amsterdam and Bourges. On April 19, Garbage returned to play a six-week itinerary of North American dates.^[11] Beginning in Toronto, the tour was routed down the Eastern Coast of America, over to the Midwest and then onto the West Coast. The jaunt ended with two night stint in Los Angeles.^[12] Garbage are supported by Abandoned Pools and on some shows, by White Stripes; during the tour, Vig is taken ill (later diagnosed as Bell's Palsy) and is replaced again by Matt Chamberlain.^[13] Garbage wrapped the North American tourdates on June 6 in Mexico City.

A month-long European trek began June 10 in Madrid, covering major rock festivals including Glastonbury and Roskilde. Matt Walker stood in for Vig for the rest of the summer.^[13] Garbage perform two shows in Nice and Lyon supporting Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a further two headlining French shows in Lille and Paris with Mercury Rev as support. The European leg ended at Espárrago Rock in Spain on July 12. Throughout the run, Manson is dogged by vocal problems, leading to the cancellation of a few festival appearances. After a six-week break, Garbage return to the United Kingdom to perform their last European shows of the year - two intimate club gigs in London.^[14]

With Vig rejoining the ranks following his recovery period, Garbage headed to Australia to perform at the four date M-One festival across the country at the beginning of October.^[15] Garbage then joined No Doubt, who were promoting their Rock Steady album, to co-headline a trek around the United States. Support came from The Distillers. Kicking off on October 15 in West Kingston, Rhode Island, the tour was route down the Eastern Seaboard, and into Southern States before heading to the Pacific Northwest region and onto the American Southwest.^[16] The tour ended on November 27 in Long Beach, California.

Garbage went on to perform one further show, in Hell, Grand Cayman. Degree flew 200 competition winners to the Cayman Islands for a beachside Garbage concert.^[17] One competition winner was matched with a local for an episode of the reality show Blind Date and both got to meet the band.^[18]

Tour dates

Setlists

As the first few dates on the third leg of U2's worldwide stadium Elevation Tour are time-limited sets; Garbage perform only a few of their numbers. Garbage debut new arrangements of singles "Only Happy When it Rains", "Stupid Girl", "Push It", "I Think I'm Paranoid" and "Special"; also returning is an updated arrangement of "Silence is Golden", which debuted on the last leg of the Version 2.0 tour. Garbage perform current single "Androgyny" at a few of the shows, alongside new album tracks "Shut Your Mouth", "'Til the Day I Die", "Cherry Lips", "Drive You Home". At one show, technical difficulties prompt the band to perform snippets of The Beatles' "Day Tripper" and Big Star's "Thirteen"; the band's 1997 Modern Rock Tracks chart-topper "#1 Crush" is added to the set mid-way.^[24]

Expanding their short support set to a full length headline concert sees Garbage return to play "Androgyny"; older songs returning from the Version 2.0 tour include "Supervixen", "Not My Idea", "Milk" and "When I Grow Up" while the band's cover of "Thirteen is added to the setlist formally. Only one new song is debuted on this leg, "Breaking Up the Girl".^[24]

Returning to the final and third leg of U2's worldwide stadium Elevation Tour, Garbage perform only a few of their numbers to accommodate the time allocation of their set, essentially performing the same short set as before, with the addition on the first night of both "Vow" and scheduled North American single "Breaking Up the Girl"; the former song is dropped after the first night, while the latter is substituted by "'Til The Day I Die".^[24]

Box office score data

Promotional performances

Live at Eagles Ballroom 2002

Garbage: Live at Eagles Ballroom 2002 was a long-form live video DVD planned for release in 2002 by Garbage to document the North American leg of the Beautiful Garbage tour, utlilizing footage shot on May 11, 2002 at the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The footage likely went unreleased because the band's worldwide record label Mushroom Records UK was wound down before it was sold to Warner Music label EastWest in early 2003.^[32] An entry for the DVD release was included on the band's official website discography in April 2005;^[33] while show taper Ken LaBarre uploaded footage shot for "Special" to YouTube on January 3, 2007.^[34]

The origin of the DVD came from a pitch to the band's management made by producer Bruce A. Johnson, who put together a video production proposal on the chance the band would be interested in recording a concert for release, or to file away for future use. The material would be owned and controlled by the band, unlike footage from previous TV appearances.^[35] The approach that the production team planned to use was "low impact, high quality digital video", a guerilla-style filming without using any cranes, jibs or trucks.^[34] The footage was shot using two cameras placed above Butch Vig's drum kit, two balcony cameras set on tripods (centre and stage-right), two cameras situated in the pit in front of the stage, and a handheld camera on the stage-left. The drumkit camera's were used to capture different angles of the show, while the balcony cameras were used to keep Manson in sight at all times.^[35] The production team were initially concerned about the problems shooting an un-lit audience, but Garbage's darker pop material lent itself better to the footage recorded. The team initially produced a four-song demo DVD to present the band with an idea as to how the final footage would look, as well as producing an isolated drum-cam track for use as a DVD bonus feature.^[35]

References

External links

• Garbage official website