Shirley Manson is “tired” of being treated like a “circus performer”.
The Garbage singer went viral after she launched a furious rant against a reveller at Melbourne’s Good Things Festival on Friday (05.12.25) after her group’s set was interrupted by beach balls being thrown into the crowd, and she has no regrets about her foul-mouthed tirade.
Shirley had fumed: “Big guy with your big f****** beach ball.
“What a f****** douchebag. You’re a f****** middle-aged man in a f****** ridiculous hat, and you’re a f****** f***face. I want, literally, to ask people to f****** punch you in the f****** face. But you know what? I’m a lady, so I won’t.
“We’re fed up of not getting f****** paid properly and fed up of having to play for douchebags like you.”
Following online debate about her comments, Shirley took to Threads and wrote: “I make NO APOLOGIES whatsoever for getting annoyed at beach balls at shows.
“I joined a band because I HATED THE F****** BEACH. I joined a band because I wanted to listen to Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure and be dark and beautiful.
“I love the musical community and I want to respect their artistry. I am so tired of folks taking music for free and treating us all like circus performers.”
The Only Happy When it Rains hitmaker admitted in September that she was planning to give up touring because “the thievery of the record industry” has made performing live “very difficult”.
During a gig at The Anthem venue in Washington, D.C., Shirley told the audience: “We have as a band decided that, due to basically the economics of the music industry, that we have to curtail our headline touring business.
“It has, thanks to the thievery of the record industry, made touring very, very difficult. We’re not complaining, we’ve had a f****** great run.”
She went on to insist she’s speaking out about the issue because she worries about young musicians who are struggling to tour.
Shirley added: “I bring this up only because my concern is of course for young musicians who go out there and tour, they’re holding down jobs, they take two weeks off their work and they go around the country.
“Sometimes they’re sleeping in their van, sometimes they’re staying in really, really dodgy so-called motels and it’s dangerous and it’s really unacceptable and it really has to stop. Whatever’s going on, it really has to stop. It’s unsafe and it’s unacceptable.”
Shirley added of the future of Garbage: “So we have just decided that the economics have become untenable, so this is kind of the last time that we’ve decided we’re going to get on a bus and just tour all over North America.
“It’s a fantastic privilege and it’s so beautiful and exciting and amazing. And all the more so because I doubt that we’ll do a tour this size ever again.
“We all feel that we’ve been so immensely privileged and we’ve enjoyed unbelievable support from our fans, from you.
“At times in the music industry, they’ve told us we’re old, we’re over, nobody’s interested, nobody gives a f***, nobody wants to play us on radio, nobody wants to interview us. And then you lot came along. You were like: ‘Get behind us, Satan’. And we won’t forget it.”
