Posted by Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson has always been an outspoken figure, and she’s holding nothing back these days. Garbage recently finished what they say will be their final North American tour. Onstage, Manson regularly spoke out about the economic system of the present-day music industry. Now, Garbage are in Australia, and Manson is getting even madder about another issue facing musicians today: beach balls.
Earlier today, Garbage played the Melbourne edition of the Good Things festival, and Manson got furious at some guy in the crowd with a beach ball. Maybe he threw the beach ball at her? I must confess that I don’t know the full backstory. He must’ve thrown that beach ball hard, though, since Manson’s reaction was full-on spitting mad. She was not playing around. She was real-deal angry. This is what she said:
Big guy with your big fuckin’ beach ball! Oooooh, I’m sooo scared of you, so thrilled by you! What a fuckin’ douchebag!… Fuckin’ dudes, wow. Oh my god, you’re so cool. It’s just so fuckin’ outrageously cool, I can’t get over it, wow. It’s disrespectful. And musicians have had enough. And we’re fed up of not getting fuckin’ paid properly and fed up of having to play for douchebags like you. You’re a fuckin’ middle-aged man in a fuckin’ ridiculous hat, and you’re a fuckin’ fuckface. And I want, literally, to ask people to fuckin’ punch you in the fuckin’ face. But you know what? I’m a lady, so I won’t. But truly, I would love to send my crew over to fuckin’ mess you up. But you know what? I won’t because I pity you because you’re a small man with a smalllll dick. Goodnight, angelface.
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After the set, Shirley Manson went on Threads to say that she refuses to apologize and to elaborate on his dislike of beach balls and of the beach in general:
I make NO APOLOGIES whatsoever for getting annoyed at beachballs at shows. I joined a band because I HATED THE FUCKING BEACH. I joined a band because I wanted to listen to Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure and be dark and beautiful.
Continue listening to Spotify and toss your stupid beach balls around like you are ten years old. 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.
So Shirley Manson is only happy when there are no beach balls. Truthfully, we should’ve seen this coming. In 2021, Manson did a Stereogum We’ve Got A File On You interview and talked about being “horrified” by the MTV Beach House:
You’ve got to understand, I didn’t come from a beach culture. I came from a cold Scottish granite city. And I had never even worn a swimsuit in public. The whole universe of California beach living was just something entirely alien to me and so I was horrified by the heat, I was horrified by the sun. I didn’t know how to dress, so I was in a very uncomfortable outfit. I was in thick black tights with boots and a restrictive mini-skirt, and I didn’t even have sunscreen on. I was really miserable, physically miserable and uncomfortable. And of course, we were not making music that applied to the kind of audience that MTV’s Beach House was attracting.
There was a lot of jocks in swimming trunks and tossing beach balls around and I was just like, “What the fuck is this? This is not appropriate.”
In the comments of Garbage’s latest Instagram post, representatives of pro-beach ball factions are posting gifs of beach balls, but Garbage fans seem to be trying to smother them by posting heart and flame and heart-eyes emojis and pushing the beach balls down to the bottom of the comments. I fear that the Garbage/beach ball culture wars are only just beginning.