Garbage’s Shirley Manson had to break up a fight at the band’s festive concert.
The ‘Stupid Girl’ singer, 57, spotted an altercation just three songs into their 30-minute set at Audacy’s KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas concert this past weekend, and told the security staff to do something swiftly to resolve the situation.
Shirley, who was mid-song performing ‘Wolves’ at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California on Saturday (09.12.23), ranted (expletives redacted): “Knock this off, girls. Knock this off right now. What is wrong with you?”
She went on: “I don’t know ladies, I don’t know what the story is; quite frankly, I don’t care. There’s enough [going on] in this world… I don’t care who it is. I want it to stop. Do we not have enough going on in the world without going aggro at some Christmas party?”
Speaking to the venue’s staff, she shouted: “Separate them right now. Security, I’d like you to get in there and find out what is going on. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Somebody has lost something, whether it’s a contact lens, glasses or a phone. Let’s sort it out.”
Annoyed that they were wasting their short set, she added: “Meanwhile, we’ve got 30 minutes on this stage and you’re eating into our time. So get it sorted. I don’t have patience for this.”
The band was able to resume the gig and played a further three songs.
The woman caught up in the spat, called Amanda, claims Shirley hadn’t witnessed what sparked the bout and claimed a “drunk” female fan shoved her girlfriend to get to the front.
She told KROQ’s ‘The Kevin / Ally Show’ on Monday (11.12.23): “It wasn’t what Shirley thought it was.
“It was actually me defending myself and my girlfriend because there was this one girl who was just torpedoing her way through the front rows. And when she came in and she’s pushing her way through, and she’s pushing my girlfriend out of the way and then her hands in my face, I’m gonna defend myself.”
Amanda claims that, in her defence, she punched the girl in the face and knocked her earring out.
She continued: “I didn’t mean to interrupt the show. I’m a huge Garbage fan and I was really [annoyed] that that happened. Everyone in the audience was so chill and all of a sudden you have this rude drunk girl coming through like a tornado.”
The gig-goer thanked Shirley for trying to help and admitted: “I felt like I got yelled at by my mom.”