Garbage • Starcrawler • October 29, 2025 • The Complex
Reviewed and Photographed by Amelia Weyerstall
One of the biggest rock bands of the 90s, Garbage, took what could very possibly be their last time playing in Salt Lake City, to The Complex. They were joined by opening band Starcrawler on what was an emotional and memorable night.
Starcrawler
Starcrawler had full-on rockstar energy, coming out onto the stage headbanging and kicking feet to the music. After playing their first song of the evening, “Goodtime Girl,” lead singer Arrow De Wilde shouted, “What’s up, Salt Lake City!!! Alright, c’mon take off your temple garments, let’s get into it!” which made the Salt Lake audience cheer. The Los Angeles-based glam punk band played some of their bigger hits while also playing songs only heard while on tour, like “It’s 3 AM”, an unreleased song but well-loved and well-known by their fans.
The whole stage had a pink setup for the band; every amplifier for the guitars was pink, the microphone cords, the guitars, and even the drum kit were all decked out in the color. The lighting throughout their set was all pink, and everyone’s outfits had at least a touch of pink as well.
Originally started in high school by Wilde, Starcrawler has been growing in size for years, having toured around the country and world with acts like Jack White, The Foo Fighters, and even My Chemical Romance.
Their energy was explosive, very chaotic, and shocking when performing, all in the best of ways. Starcrawler’s whole performance blew the roof off of the Complex and definitely created some new fans in the audience. They were the perfect way to start the night off with a bang.
Garbage
The crowd had been excitedly awaiting Garbage’s entrance onto the stage, so when they came out, the crowd cheered wildly. Frontwoman and lead singer Sherley Manson came out onto stage and demanded the crowd’s attention with her commanding presence and stunning vocals.
This legendary Wisconsin-based band has been in the spotlight for almost 30 years and has toured around the globe, sharing positive vibes and impactful stories. At the Salt Lake show, Manson shared, “Well, Well, Well, Salt Lake City! We are really, really, psyched to be here, in this spectacular city. Thank you so much, thank you for coming out tonight. This has been a 30-year relationship, the longest relationship of my life, aside from my parents and my sister. And I don’t even know where to start, quite honestly, I should say thank you of course, to Starcrawler, that’s a very good place to start. (Lots of cheers)
Second of all, I went to Antelope Island yesterday, and again you’ve got to forgive me i’m gonna share too much, i lost my dad about 3 weeks ago, (ahhs from the crowd) you know as anyone who’s been any kind of devastating loss its such a weird thing, grief is such a weird process, one minute you’re fine, the next you’re a mess. It has been really quite a trip to lose my old man, and I went to Antelope Island yesterday. (Manson starts crying) Everything’s fine, everything’s fine. I went to Antelope Island yesterday and I saw bison. And it was an extraordinarily weird experience; it was everything about my life that is perfect.
I’ve been in love with America since I was a little girl, and to get to come here with my amazing band, and to get to come here for 30 years, is so weird and wonderful. Anyway, I was looking at this bison yesterday, and these big hairy beasts and their magical and mystical purr, and I felt something really shift in my body, and it was really amazing. My dad taught genetics at university, and he studied like animal husbandry and so I grew up knowing all about cows, weird kinds of cows, and bison.
And I don’t know, all this crazy sh*t that my dad kind of made us listen to, scoffing at it, and now I’m nearly 60 and I’m like holy sh*t, dad, I totally understand what you were going on about. I totally understand what you were so in love with, so my point just being, Thank you so much, Salt Lake, for healing something in me. And second of all I just want to dedicate this next song, to a fan we met earlier on at one of our VIP meet and greets, she told us that she had been in a really quite insufferable time, and this one is for Diana, its called “The Trick is to Keep Breathing”” This made the audience all tear up, grateful to help heal a bit of the lead singer’s grief.
The show was spectacular; however, in between songs, there were some slight technical issues with band members not being able to hear themselves. The issue was quickly and efficiently resolved, and the rest of the set went off smoothly.
One of the best qualities about Garbage is how much they love their fans. In regards to the former, Manson said, “I was going to play a song that go far and our fourth record is us to the title track to our 4th grade and this is a song and our discography that was just sort of grown and grown with our career and we never imagined that it would be something that you all loved and that you keep asking for every time we come and play a show.
This song is essentially about how we’re all so weird and different from one another. And I think we all feel as a band that we really don’t care how weird you are unless you’re hurting animals or children, in which case we want you to die. But this is a Garbage philosophy, which is we hate nobody. We don’t care what race you are, what color you are, what gender you are, what sexuality you are, we don’t care if you tuck to the right or to the left, we don’t give a flying shit about what kind of food you like to eat, what kind of sex you like to have, we really don’t care what god you worship. We really don’t care, we don’t care.
We want everybody, everybody to be treated with kindness, and we’re getting really sick and tired of all of the nonsense that’s going on right now, of the othering people, the picking on people, criticizing people, it’s so boring. So this is a song from Garbage to all of the other like-minded people in the audience tonight.” Garbage then played their hit song “Bleed Like Me”.
Fans of Garbage are picking older classics of the band and singing their hearts out to them, Manson stated, “This tour that we’re on right now, it’s been, you know, since the first of September. And for some inexplicable reason, the song that we’ve had in our discography for 30 years has suddenly become a song that everybody sings along to, which we find absolutely mind-blowing, because nobody has ever sung along to it before this tour. But all of a sudden, everybody is joining in, and it is the first time it happened. It felt so amazing to me. I can’t quite explain it.
Like, hearing you lot sing is so much nicer than hearing myself sing. I love hearing Nicole sing, but I don’t particularly enjoy hearing myself sing. But when you all sing, it’s like going to fucking church as a three-year-old or something. It’s so beautiful. So anyway, I say this because I really hope, Salt Lake City, that you will join in this song with your beautiful voices.” The crowd definitely joined in, and it was truly like a choir, singing along to the song “Queer”.
When the song “When I Grew Up” followed up that performance, the crowd was so ecstatic, instantly jumping around and screaming along to the lyrics.
Ending the night off was a bit emotional for the crowd and the band. Manson solemnly said, “I don’t know if anybody is aware or not, I’m sure some of you are and some of you probably aren’t, but we have come to the conclusion that this may very well be the last time we come to Salt Lake City. Which is a somewhat devastating confession, but just touring the way that we are accustomed to touring, and by that I mean, you know, we’re not in a transit van and we’re not holding down two jobs at home. We generally like to be on a tour bus and be safe and be staying in hotels where our security is not in question.
And thank you to the new record business, business being the operative word, the way that the record business is currently is just making it really, really difficult for bands. And I mention this not for ourselves because we’ve been incredibly fortunate and we’ve had a 30-year career and we’ve got nothing to complain about. We say this because we’re very, very concerned about the generations that are in our footsteps, and we’re very concerned about, most importantly, we’re concerned about banks. Because, of course, the new industry, new music business is in favour of solo artists. That’s why we see so many of them. It’s because they’re cheap to run. They’re cheap for record companies. You’ve only got one person, one hotel room, you know. Blah, blah, blah. You get the picture.
Anyway, the band, as we once knew it, is becoming a threatened species. And Garbage is kind of one of a few, I mean, we’re called, like, the last of our kind. We grew up in the 90s, you know, when it was the heyday of the robot. So anyway, I don’t know why I’m bringing this up. I guess because I want you all to know, on behalf of the whole band, how grateful we are to you for everything you have done for us. Thank you for sharing that with us. Just being here for us and allowing us this extraordinary life that we lead, where we get to travel the country. It’s a really beautiful way to live, and it’s all thanks to you.” This was the sweetest way to end the night.
