Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

One man's garbage is another man's treasure

Ninety minutes before Lit took the stage Saturday night at UA Centennial Hall to open things up for Garbage, bassist Kevin Baldes sat backstage, attempting to chill.

After nine years of hard work, the band is in the middle of its first big-time tour. Baldes still hasn't figured out a way to get calm before the show.

"We've been doing this since junior high," Baldes said. "We've always licked our wounds and kept moving. Now we've moved to a higher plateau."

Then came show time.

The second the lights went out inside the building, it became obvious that the audience was not of the more sophisticated ilk from David Rousseve's show the night before.

Three-thousand seats simultaneously popped up, creating a loud "boing" sound. Security guards braced themselves. Everyone who had put up $25 for a reserved seat made a dramatic attempt to upgrade.

Once the stage lights started blasting, Baldes was all right. He jammed as lead singer A. Jay Popoff bounced across the stage and enflamed the crowd with his vocals. Throughout the band's 10-song set, the only time Baldes showed any sign of stage fright was when he slipped up on stage after a song and took a fall.

Lit rocked, especially while playing hits like "Ziplock" and "My Own Worst Enemy," in which the band asked the crowd to sing along. But the band knew its place. After their 10th song, Popoff wiped the sweat off his forehead and asked the crowd if it was ready for Garbage.

That inquiry drew a larger response from the fans than any song the band played.

After 15 minutes of buildup, the venue darkened once again as Garbage and lead singer Shirley Manson trotted onto stage in front of the sold-out auditorium.

Manson, wearing tight leather pants and a shirt that - to the crowd's delight - wasn't quite long enough to cover her belly button, announced that this was the first time that she'd ever visited Tucson.

Manson was energetic and vivacious throughout the two-hour set. She danced around and flirted with the crowd during and in between the band's monster hits like "Special," "Push It" and "Stupid Girl." Manson also sang "Silence Is Golden," the song she identified as the next single to be released.

Manson's sexy Scottish accent was more prominent in concert than in the band's studio recordings. Manson's twang and guitarist Steve Marker's exaggerated prominence made Garbage's well-established hits take on a different life.

For the encore, Manson belted out "The World Is Not Enough," the theme song to the newly-released James Bond movie of the same name.

As 10:30 approached, the lone drama left in the show was the question of whether Garbage would play "Queer," a hit off its 1995 debut CD.

A large portion of the crowd had been shouting for Garbage to play the song throughout the night. Even Lit guitarist Jeremy Popoff waded his way though the crowd while holding a large poster that read "QUEER" in thick, black magic-marker writing.

"You want to hear 'Queer?'" Manson said to the crowd. "Maybe later."

But in the end, Manson held out. She finished with "I'm Only Happy When It Rains," then bid the crowd farewell.

"For those of you who I don't see again," Manson said. "I hope you have marvelous lives."