The avant-garde alternative rockers of Garbage are on the road celebrating the 20th anniversary of their sophomore album, “Version 2.0,” as part of a tour that swings through Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
Shirley Manson, the band’s outspoken singer and all-around style icon, said that after the success of Garbage’s eponymous debut album, the followup, “Version 2.0,” helped to fine-tune the group’s sound and direction.
“It’s very much representative of our style. A lot of fuss was made of our debut record, but to me, that’s not particularly representative of how we sound now,” said Mason. “For me, ‘Version 2.0’ was when we came into our own. In that regard, I feel like it’s who we are even now.”
For this tour, Garbage is performing “Version 2.0” in its entirety, along with B-sides from the album’s reissue. That means a considerable number of the biggest hits will not be performed on this go-round.
“We understood the risk,” Mason said. “This tour is pretty obtuse. We’re asking a lot of the audience. The first week of playing these shows, we were wondering how the hell it was going to go down. We have been really blown away by the response. We’ve enjoyed some of the best reviews of our career. It’s been a relief not to rely on the big hits from the first record, and for me, it’s exciting. I’m grateful we decided to cut ties with the hits. It’s something that we talk about as a band a lot. I think we know that we’ve spent an entire career trying to write really strong, good songs.”
With a roster of producing and songwriting members that includes superstar drummer Butch Vig and guitarists Duke Erikson and Steve Marker, Garbage has always eschewed expectations and conventions, even by alternative-rock standards, by incorporating a wide range of styles and influences ranging from punk and trip-hop to ambient and industrial. Manson said the vision for the group has always had a creative disregard for sonic boundaries.
“The way that we have always approached the music is an open-ended, open-minded one,” she said. “We’ve never really stopped ourselves from using certain influences from different genres of music. We’ve always been open about that and continued that trend throughout our career.
“When we emerged in the 1990s, we endured a lot of criticism for exactly that. We didn’t belong to any particular genre. But as we have managed to somehow eke out a career for ourselves over 25 years, people have had to accept that this is our style and our philosophy. Everybody mixes genres now. That is where contemporary music has ended up.”
Garbage performs 8 p.m. Oct. 25 at The Fillmore Philadelphia, 29 E. Allen St., and 9 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa Music Box, 1 Borgata Way, Atlantic City, N.J. For more information or tickets, visit www.garbage.com.