Garbage have announced that they’re quitting touring, in North America at least.
The band are currently on a Stateside jaunt that takes them up to a date at the Hollywood Palladium on November 5, but Shirley Manson made the shock announcement on stage in Washington DC last week. "We have as a band decided that, due to basically the economics of the music industry, that we have to curtail our headline touring business.
"It has, thanks to the thievery of the record industry, made touring very, very difficult. We’re not complaining, we’ve had a f***ing great run."
We all know about how difficult touring is for up and coming artists, but it’s truly concerning if a band with a thirty year history, fondly-regarded back catalogue and a loyal fanbase are finding it uneconomic to go on the road.
Manson went on to say that she was speaking out about this out of concern for younger artists. "I bring this up only because my concern is of course for young musicians who go out there and tour, they’re holding down jobs, they take two weeks off their work and they go around the country."
"Sometimes they’re sleeping in their van, sometimes they’re staying in really, really dodgy so-called motels and it’s dangerous and it’s really unacceptable and it really has to stop. Whatever’s going on, it really has to stop. It’s unsafe and it’s unacceptable."
Explaining their decision, she said: "So we have just decided that the economics have become untenable, so this is kind of the last time that we’ve decided we’re going to get on a bus and just tour all over North America.”
"It’s a fantastic privilege and it’s so beautiful and exciting and amazing. And all the more so because I doubt that we’ll do a tour this size ever again.”
Fans can perhaps console themselves with the fact that Manson’s statement contains a number of loopholes. It doesn’t preclude Garbage from performing one-off shows or even shorter tours.
Older musicians have, of course, to ration their energy and two of the core members of the band – Butch Vig and Duke Erikson – are already over 70. And does this retirement from the road cover Europe as well, or – in Manson’s own words – just North America?
The singer concluded by telling the crowd: "We want to drink to your amazing collective health, we don’t know if we’ll ever see you again, maybe we will, maybe we won’t.”
So...if you want to catch Garbage one more time before they ride off into the sunset, check out Garbage.com.
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