Garbage Kicks Off Final North American Tour With Rarities & Debuts In Orlando

On Wednesday, Garbage launched their Happy Endings North American Fall Tour 2025 with a career-spanning concert at Hard Rock Live in Orlando. The band recently revealed the excursion, their first stateside headlining trek in nearly a decade, will also be their last North American tour.

Frontwoman Shirley Manson and bandmates keyboardist/guitarist Duke Erikson, guitarist/keyboardist Steve Marker and drummer Butch Vig along with touring bassist Nicole Fiorentino played songs from every Garbage studio album except 2012’s Not Your Kind Of People. The band, celebrating their 30th anniversary, fit three live debuts and a pair of oldies that had gone missing in action since the start of the decade into the setlist.

Garbage opened with “There’s No Future In Optimism” and “Hold,” a double dose of their new LP, Let All That We Imagine Be The Light. “Hold” was the evening’s first live debut. Others premiered later in the night were “Chinese Fire Horse” and the set-closing “The Day That I Met God,” as only four tracks from the band’s latest album were performed in Orlando.

A surprise filled the eight-slot when the quartet resurrected “Not My Idea.” The song from the band’s self-titled 1995 debut album hadn’t been performed since November 14, 2015. Garbage went on to break out beautifulgarbage track “Parade,” which was last played on July 17, 2019.

The night was loaded with crowd pleasers, including “Why Do You Love Me,” “Push It,” “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!),” “Vow” and “Not My Idea.” Shirley Manson addressed the crowd after the 1995 hit “Only Happy When It Rains” began the evening’s encore. Manson gave the audience sage advice, stating:

“We wrote this song on our second record. We were up on Vancouver Island when we were still relatively young. Everybody in the music industry told us how old we were. They were always like, ‘Oh, garbage. They’re so old. They’re so… they’re so like…’

“30 years later, here we are. This, I guess, which I guess just proves that you really mustn’t listen to anyone talking about how old you are, what you can and what you cannot do, what you’re capable of. Like, you can change your fucking career tonight. You can do anything you want. ‘Cuz like I said, we were told like 30 years ago, we were told so many things about who we were, what we were, what we capable of. And it was actually a whole new world. And quite honestly, I bought into a lot of it. And now, like, as I said, like I’m one year shy of 60 years old and I realize it’s all complete nonsense.

“And you literally can turn your life around and die for so much. The desire is there. Make it happen. You want to fucking change your life. If you fucking are with somebody you don’t want to be with, fucking walk out. It’s my advice to you. You can take it or leave it.”

Garbage then lit into their beloved international smash “When I Grow Up” to end the concert. The tour picks up on Friday in Pompano Beach, Florida and runs through November 5.

Watch “When I Grow Up” and more videos captured by @K-Train Productions from Garbage’s tour opener:

Check out the full concert courtesy of Big Cat Productions below: