Garbage at Gröna Lund: A Night of Nostalgia, Activism, and Rock Resilience

Garbage played at Gröna Lund yesterday, and it turned into a mix of nostalgia and the present day, with a reminder of the times we live in. In addition to singing, dancing around and clearly enjoying herself on stage with her band, Shirley Manson had plenty to say between songs.

She spoke out against sexism, misogyny and age discrimination. Throughout her career, she has criticized society’s and the entertainment industry’s reluctance to punish male perpetrators. Last night, she questioned why none of the men named in the Epstein case have been convicted.

Each story became an effective way of leading us into the next song. Like when she talked about how music journalists had asked her, around the time they had just released their seventh studio album, when she planned to retire. At the time, she simply laughed it off. Something she regretted now. But for the next studio album, they wrote the song “Chinese Fire Horse”, which she performed after saying: “Don’t let anyone make you believe that you’re old and finished after turning 25.”

Last year, Garbage released their eighth studio album, and the concert mixed new material with old. Here is the evening’s setlist, in the order the songs were played: “There’s No Future in Optimism”, “Hold”, “Empty”, “I Think I’m Paranoid”, “Stupid Girl”, “Right Between the Eyes”, “Vow”, “No Horses”, “It’s All Over but the Crying”, “Have We Met (The Void)”, “Control”, “Chinese Fire Horse”, “Boys Wanna Fight”, “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)”, “When I Grow Up”, “Push It”, “The Day That I Met God”. Then came two encores: “Special”, before the evening ended with the song Garbage have performed live the most, more than a thousand times: “Only Happy When It Rains”.

A few raindrops on the way home would have been fitting as I hummed, “I’m only happy when it rains.”