Whatever JJ72 Version 2.0 might be, they’re no support band. A couple of years ago the trio would have had a shot at headlining here, but a new pragmatism has seeped into the music. They’ve condensed the sonic architectural shapes of I To Sky (an album not so much released as sent straight to tax write-off limbo) into byte sized synopses of what they do best: rigid Euro atmospheres hitched to Yank angst and big melodies, evident on the new single ‘Coming Home’ and the Odlum’s owl hooks of ‘Take From Me’. New girl Sarah Fox affords the band a lot more lubrication on the bottom end (matron), while staples like ‘Formulae’ and ‘Oxygen’ certify the band’s rightful place in a climate dictated by Interpol and Arcade Fire. Mark Greaney still looks like Death In Venice, but there’s been a palpable jettisoning of bratty Pumpkins posturing that’s as welcome as it is overdue. And no, they didn’t trash the backline.
As for Garbage, here they are ten years down the line, and still freaks of evolution. Their audience may be hard to market target (pale-faced and interracial misfits-and-proud-of-it rubbing up against 30-something couples and blokey blokes) but it’s certainly substantial. The Brixton Academy, halfway between the Olympia and the Point, is jammed. And if the Bleed Like Me album isn’t nearly as stripped back as the band think it is, their current live approach acknowledges the shortest distance between two points being a straight line. Notwithstanding Shirley Manson’s stage presence (tonight she’s a kohl-eyed and corn-rowed bantamweight in a little black number) and ability to combine torch phrasing with feline attitude, plus the band’s drive (the boys now attack the material where previously they’d have tried to reason with it), it’s all about the songs.
Johnny Cash’s ‘Hurt’ makes unexpected but well chosen intro music (the self-immolation theme and that old man river voice bridging the chasm between the angst of youth and the sufferings of age), before the ensemble render ‘Queer’s republic of fuck-up hymn in semi-darkness, then blast into the glammy, grimy ‘Bad Boyfriend’. Out of an 18-song set (‘Push It’, ‘Cherry Lips’ and ‘Special’ merit citations), at least 10 tunes are hit singles, hold the ballads please. That is, apart from ‘Bleed Like Me’, whose Spector drum taps and Halloween Parade lyric qualify it for anthem status. On current form, Garbage don’t leave much scope for nitpicking. They haven’t quite nailed the chorus surges of ‘Run Baby Run’ yet, but otherwise this was, like most de facto homecoming gigs (Shirley’s family were out in force to celebrate her dad’s birthday), a breeze.