Garbage have announced that Goodbye Mr MacKenzie will open for them at their huge Edinburgh concert this summer.
- READ MORE: Garbage’s Shirley Manson: “I don’t have to be young, I don’t have to be sexy – if you cancel me, you cancel me”
The Scottish-American band are due to play a bill-topping gig at Edinburgh Castle on Saturday July 11, as part of their 2026 UK and European tour. According to Shirley Manson and co, the event “most likely will be our last headline show in Scotland”.
Today (Friday January 30), it’s been confirmed that Scottish rock band Goodbye Mr Mackenzie – who formed in Bathgate near Edinburgh – will support Garbage at the big show.
Manson previously served as the keyboard player and backing singer in the group, before she found fame as Garbage’s frontwoman.
“I’m so excited to be playing this homecoming show at Edinburgh Castle and am very happy that Goodbye Mr MacKenzie will be opening the show,” she said in a statement. “Our shared history is something that is very dear to me.”
Goodbye Mr MacKenzie are one of Scotland’s most distinctive and influential alternative bands. Having formed in 1981, they built a strong reputation for dramatic, high-energy live performances and intelligent, often darkly poetic songwriting.
heir debut studio album, ‘Good Deeds and Dirty Rags’, was released in 1989 and featured some of their best-known songs, including ‘The Rattler’ and ‘Open Your Arms’.
After releasing two more albums, the band broke up in 1993. Manson subsequently appeared in the line-up for the short-lived project Angelfish, alongside Goodbye Mr MacKenzie’s Martin Metcalfe, Fin Wilson and Derek Kelly.
She then joined Garbage in 1994, with Goodbye Mr MacKenzie playing their final live show the following year. They reformed in 2019, and a remastered version of their third album ‘Five’ debuted in the top five of the Scottish album charts in 2024.
Angelfish will play two reunion shows in Edinburgh to raise funds for Palestinian children, taking place tonight (Friday January 30) and tomorrow (Saturday January 31).
Earlier this week, Garbage added three dates to their 2026 UK and European tour, including shows in London and Dublin.
The group went out on their final-ever US tour last year, after indicating that they were “unlikely to play many of the cities” on the run “ever again”.
Speaking to NME in 2024, Manson discussed the crushing and “abusive” financial strains of the music industry.
“Now what you have are musicians who are independently wealthy – maybe they come from a wealthy family – and they can start to carve out a career for themselves in the music industry,” she told us. “You have the old guard who made records before 1995; they themselves can survive. Then the artists who enjoy phenomenal success also survive.”
During another interview with NME last summer, the frontwoman opened up about the theme of love on Garbage’s latest album, ‘Let All That We Imagine Be The Light’: “I’ve never really written about love very much. I always think it’s been written about by people a thousand more talented than me. I’m just not a romantic person, really.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Manson explained that she didn’t “feel any responsibility towards anyone” as an older female artist. “I have a responsibility to myself. I’ve earned that,” she told NME. “I think I’ve found my voice as an artist. That voice is outspoken and always has been.”
Manson went on: “I don’t have to be young, I don’t have to be fast, I don’t have to be sexy, I don’t have to be appealing, I don’t have to smile. If you cancel me, you cancel me. I’ve had a fucking great career. I really don’t fucking care.”
In a glowing five-star review of ‘Let All That We Imagine…’, NME wrote: “Not only are [Garbage] showcasing some of their most intriguing and impactful material, but they’re also paving the way into a hopeful new chapter.”
Last month, Manson went on a rant about fans holding beach balls in the crowd during Garbage’s show at Melbourne’s Good Things Festival.
