Garbage closed the summer concert series at Edinburgh Castle on Saturday, July 11, delivering a commanding performance that blended greatest hits with deep cuts and a Cure cover—all while clad in kilts for their presumed final Scottish headlining show.
The Scottish-American quartet tore through a set spanning ‘Vow’, ‘Stupid Girl’, ‘Special’, and ‘Push It’, alongside a suited-and-booted rendition of The Cure’s ‘Lovesong’. When the date was announced last year, frontwoman Shirley Manson described the homecoming as “both poignant and triumphant,” noting it would likely be their last headline appearance in Scotland.
On stage, Manson called the evening “the culmination of 40 years in music.” She paid tribute to her family throughout the set, revealing her late father’s eyes “lit up” upon learning they had booked the castle. A photograph of him rested against Butch Vig’s drum kit, and Manson later led the crowd in a raucous ‘Happy Birthday’ singalong for her sister, Lindy-Jane, watching from the stands.
Garbage played:
‘There’s No Future in Optimism’
‘Hold’
‘Empty’
‘I Think I’m Paranoid’
‘Stupid Girl’
‘Right Between the Eyes’
‘Vow’
‘Happy Birthday to You’ (dedicated to Shirley’s big sister)
‘No Horses’
‘It’s All Over but the Crying’
‘Have We Met (The Void)’
‘Control’
‘Chinese Fire Horse’
‘Lovesong’ (The Cure cover)
‘Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)
‘When I Grow Up’
‘Push It’
‘The Day That I Met God’
Encore:
‘Special’
‘Only Happy When It Rains’
Following the concert, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reflected on the show’s personal resonance via Instagram, calling the evening “very special.” She recalled seeing the band at Princes Street Gardens in 1999 as a newly elected MSP; watching them 27 years later, having since stepped down from parliament, marked “a real full circle moment.”
“What made it extra special was that in the intervening years, the amazing Shirley Manson has become a friend,” Sturgeon wrote. “She is an absolute powerhouse and personifies strong, resilient, fearless womanhood. Watching her perform last night at the peak of her powers was a privilege.”
Garbage continue their European run with dates in London, Belfast, and Dublin on July 14, 17, and 18 respectively. The band wrapped their final U.S. tour in 2025, signaling they were “unlikely to play many of the cities” on that routing “ever again.”
Speaking to NME at the time, Manson detailed the “crushing and ‘abusive’ financial strains” of the modern music industry. “Now what you have are musicians who are independently wealthy—maybe they come from a wealthy family—and they can start to carve out a career for themselves,” she explained. “You have the old guard who made records before 1995; they themselves can survive. Then the artists who enjoy phenomenal success also survive.”
In a subsequent interview, Manson addressed the band’s touring future after an invitation from The Cure’s Robert Smith to play his curated Teenage Cancer Trust shows alongside Placebo. “We have never said that we are stopping playing entirely—despite how some of the media has chosen to report on this,” she clarified. “We have made the decision that our touring will be a different model from here on out.”
“We did the maths. I think this is a fascinating statistic: we played about 40 shows in North America, and Billy [Bush, husband] is such a nerd and did a bunch of equations to realise that we could have earned exactly the same amount from the entire tour if we’d only played 10 shows,” Manson continued. “That would have been approximately five shows on the east coast, and five shows on the West. Instead, we went into the middle of North America and toured all the way through it because we wanted to say farewell to a lot of the places we know we will never go back to because we can’t afford to go there.”
“So we would have earned the same amount of 10 shows as 40. Let that sink in. I don’t think the world has yet fully grasped how insane the economics are. I’ve said my peace on that and could go on and on!”
