Garbage & Starcrawler
College Street Music Hall
New Haven
Sept. 21, 2025
Music creates a connection unlike anything else, and the connection that fans have to artists rivals that of most other relationships. Nowhere was that more evident than Sunday night at College Street Music Hall, where the band Garbage got the crowd of dedicated fans to come together as community and celebrate not just the music, but each other and that connection.
It’s been 30 years since Garbage’s eponymous first album came out, and except for a bit of a break in the early aughts, the band has been steadily making unforgettable music and touring the world performing it. Vocalist Shirley Manson, guitarists Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, and drummer Butch Vig are considered legends. Sunday night in New Haven only cemented that sentiment.
First to the stage was Starcrawler. It would not be hyperbole to suggest that they could be legends in the making. A five-piece band out of Los Angeles, they offered a 30-minute set of thunderous rock and roll with a glam and punk edge. Pink was everywhere, from a glittering guitar to pedal boards to even their mics and amps (shout out to the baby lamb sitting on an amp). Vocalist Arrow de Wilde captivated the audience with her performance: singing strutting, dancing, daring everyone to be a part of it, even jumping onto the stage barrier at one point.
Every song had guts and grit, and yes, there were a lot of hooks too. It was the kind of set that makes you say, “Hey wait, is this my new favorite band?” A fiery cover of The Ramones’ “Pet Semetary” got a lot of people singing along; many of the originals did as well. A friend of mine told me before the show that he was there specifically for this band and that de Wilde is one of the most charismatic vocalists I would ever see. After the set he walked by and said with a big smile, “I told you!” He did indeed, and in her own way so did she. Check them out ASAP, and please, New Haven, invite them back for another show ASAP as well.
Garbage had recently announced that this would most likely be their final North American tour as a headliner — aptly named Happy Endings. Many people who I had met there, and myself, were even more thrilled to be seeing them. For many of us it was our first time, even though we had been fans since the ’90s. When Manson apologized that she had been having some vocal issues and would be adjusting accordingly, even creating a different setlist on the fly during the show, those dedicated fans stepped up. We all sang along. We all cheered her on. We gave her all the support we could.
Let’s be honest: We all get it. I myself wasn’t even sure if I was going to make it to the show after yet another medical issue this past Friday (I’m doing better now, thanks!), but I persevered and I’m glad I did. Manson did too, and not only did she sound incredible, but she gave the crowd two songs — “#1 Crush” and “Queer” — that were not originally on the setlist but are huge fan favorites. I don’t think I have quite heard fans singing along at a show in recent years like I did this one. The chorus of “Push It” shook the Hall as Manson held her mic to the crowd and her other hand to her heart. She was clearly moved by it all. It was hard not to be.
Let’s not forget the rest of the band — which included bassist Nicole Fiorentino in addition to the original members — who were as tight and solid as any band I have ever heard on old favorites and newer releases, such as “The Day That I Met God”, a soaring testament to survival that Manson said she wrote the lyrics to while recovering from hip surgery. As she stood before the crowd with her arms raised, the symphonic strings and pounding rhythms rising around her, the space filled with gratitude, exchanged between band and fans and back again.
The encore featured, as Manson put it, “the crowd pleasers”: “Stupid Girl” and “I’m Only Happy When It Rains.”
“We like to make people happy,” she added, also joking about how all of them are closer to death than they were 30 years ago (I mean, aren’t we all?). But on this night, life was celebrated and gratitude was aplenty. Manson could not thank everyone enough for their support, returned by this glorious crowd along with shouts of “We love you!” I mentioned earlier that this was the loudest I had heard a crowd sing along in quite a while. Nothing was louder, more cathartic, and more joyful than singing the line “Pour your misery down on me” during that final song. We all needed that.
Earlier in the show Manson had spoken about a song called “The Trick is to Keep Breathing”, the title borrowed with permission from a book about mental illness by Scottish author Janice Galloway. During the song, Manson actively took deep breaths between singing the lyrics. Singing for some is like breathing. And whether it was this song, or the anthemic “Bleed Like Me” which Manson said was about “misfits and suffering” but also about “freedom” and being “who you want to be,” there was a way for all of us there to join in, feel it all, and let it out. Manson may have thanked us all repeatedly, but we were all also so grateful for her, for the whole band, for the music. Thank you, Garbage. Thank you.
