Alt rock icons Garbage have confirmed that they won't ever put on a full North American headline tour again following an on-stage speech made by frontwoman Shirley Manson in which she accuses parts of the music industry of "thievery".
Speaking during the band's show at The Anthem in Washington DC last week on Wednesday, September 17, Manson explained that the logistics of doing a headline tour in the region have become too financially complex to navigate.
“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,” she can be seen saying in footage that has since been posted to social media. “It has, thanks to the thievery of the record industry, made touring very, very difficult.”
“We’re not complaining, we’ve had a fucking great run. 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.”
“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," she continues. "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.
“We all feel that we’ve been so immensely privileged and we’ve enjoyed unbelievable support from our fans, from you. At times in the music industry, they’ve told us we’re old, we’re over, nobody’s interested, nobody gives a fuck, nobody wants to play us on radio, nobody wants to interview us. And then you lot came along. You were like, ‘get behind us, Satan’. And we won’t forget it.”
Garbage's current North American tour runs through until November 14, when the band will play Mexico City. Their latest album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, is out now.
