Nearly a week on, it seems all people can talk about is Shirley Manson’s outrage over a beach ball in the crowd during the band’s festival set in Melbourne. The Garbage frontwoman once again addressed it during their headline show in Melbourne on Thursday night.
Per Rolling Stone AU/NZ‘s five-star review of the Palais Theatre show last night (December 11th), Manson addressed the bizarre situation, arguing that “if that person was indeed who he said he was – if he was a Garbage fan – I would never have spoken to him the way I did.”
According to Manson, she’s only spat the dummy twice across her 30-year musical career. The Melbourne crowd were told the other time she “went nuts” was in response to “one cunt” who spat on her, following when she was cast as a Terminator in the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. “I’m sorry I lost my cool,” she said, cheekily adding, “but I still fucking hate beach balls.” Laughter then rang out in the crowd.
“We’re fed up of not getting fucking paid properly and fed up of having to play for douchebags like you. You’re a fucking middle-aged man in a fucking ridiculous hat, and you’re a fucking fuckface. And I want, literally, to ask people to fucking punch you in the fucking face. But you know what? I’m a lady, so I won’t.”
She doubled down on her stance via social media following the performance posting to social media that she would make “NO APOLOGIES”: “I love the musical community, and I want to respect their artistry. I am so tired of folks taking music for free and treating us all like circus performers.”
“I just have to address your glorious beach balls, they’re very impressive!” Manson initially joked. “And not only are they impressive but they are very, very big.” She then used the moment to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
“The only thing that kind of shocks me a little is there’s been more fuss made about me offending beach balls than there has about 20,000 Palestinian kids who are now fucking under the dirt,” she continued. If I upset you about your blessed beach balls, I humbly apologise. However, I would really like it if the governments of the day apologised for what the fuck is happening in Palestine.”
Elsewhere during Garbage’s headline show last night, Manson pointed out that this is the band’s first tour on Australian soil since their mentor, the great Michael Gudinski, passed away. “We would have no career without Michael,” she tearfully admitted to the crowd.
“To be able to return to sacred, stunning New Zealand and to Australia – the home country of our most beloved music business guru, Michael Gudinski – is an immense thrill for us as a band,” Manson previously said when their Australia and New Zealand tour was announced. “We have been aching to return to this part of the world for a long time now and this tour will be played every night in Gudinski’s honour.”
Garbage have two more shows on their Australian tour, in Adelaide tonight (Friday, December 12th) and Sydney (Sunday, December 14th). See here for more details.
