Shirley Manson’s former band, Goodbye Mr MacKenzie will support her and Garbage when they appear at Edinburgh Castle in July.
Garbage’s show at Edinburgh Castle, which the group have already said will most likely be their last headline show in Scotland, will now have a familiar first act for audiences to enjoy.
Goodbye Mr MacKenzie is one of Scotland’s most distinctive and influential alternative bands, which has built a strong reputation for dramatic, high-energy live performances and intelligent, often darkly poetic songwriting.
The group’s debut album “Good Deeds and Dirty Rags” was released in 1988 and featured some of their best-known songs, including “The Rattler” and “Open Your Arms”.
After two more albums, however, the band split in 1993; a year later Shirley Manson joined Garbage and, 17 million album sales later, she and the band continue to explore and celebrate rock music as a vehicle for change to new audiences across the globe.
In 2019 Goodbye Mr MacKenzie reformed, and in 2024 they released a remastered version of their third album Five, which then debuted in the top five of the Scottish album charts.
Shirley Manson said: “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. Our shared history is something that is very dear to me.”
Tickets on sale from from www.ticketmaster.co.uk
Garbage
Edinburgh musician and songwriter, Shirley Manson, who now lives in Los Angeles, appeared at the Muckle be the Light event in Portobello Town Hall on New Year’s Day and admitted that the first time she had met Nicola Sturgeon, she (Shirley) had burst into tears.
She said she had never ever met a woman who “had done so much for so many people ever”. She remarked it was just after the pandemic, and praised Ms Sturgeon as she said: “It was right after Covid, when you had held, not just our country together, but countries all over the world, including the United States. Everybody I knew in America was like – Have you checked out what Nicola Sturgeon is saying? You should follow her. Everybody globally was listening to the common sense that you offered so easily, and with a lot of grace, and I’m just so eternally grateful to you for so many things.”
Shirley Manson and Garbage were asked by Regular Music to appear at Edinburgh Castle on 11 July 2026, and Shirley divulged, ahead of time, that her previous band, Goodbye Mr MacKenzie will also perform as support.
