Grunge

On the one hand, we should all have James Blunt’s problems. The man has sold 25 million records. He’s loaded, is widely lauded as the Oscar Wilde of X, and enjoyed a rich and varied romantic life before settling into marriage and fatherhood in a mansion in Ibiza. As a scion of the Blount (with an ‘o’) clan, one of England’s most distinguished military families, he served with distinction as a British Army Captain; Bl(o)unt, the legend runs, more or less singlehandedly prevented World War III by refusing a US order to engage with Russian troops at Pristina airport in the aftermath of the conflict in Kosovo.

Many indie types from the 1980s and 1990s were secretly metal fans. But it’s not something they ever really wanted to admit to in public. They’d talk a good game about the Stooges and the Velvet Underground but back home – as was the case with Leeds’s goth overlord Andrew Eldritch, of the Sisters of Mercy – their living rooms were full of AC/DC videotapes. In fact, I’d go further and say the most influential track in the history of alternative music might very well be ‘Kashmir’ by Led Zeppelin rather than one of the hipster-anointed underground classics. It sometimes feels as though every indie band with one foot in rock has to have their attempt at ‘Kashmir’, all jarring rhythms and slabs of guitar, faintly eastern, very grand.

There’s nothing quite like the drama of a prodigal’s return. ‘I’ve been singing in this venue since I was ten years old,’ announces Shirley Manson, staring down nearly half a century of personal history at Edinburgh’s ornate Usher Hall. The fact that Garbage’s lead singer made the United States her primary residence many years ago lends this homecoming concert added potency. There are shout-outs to her dad, a ‘Happy Birthday’ serenade for her sister and what looks like a tear or two at the start of the encore. A ‘badass’ attitude is so sleekly applied it seems like a Che Guevara T-shirt in the racks at M&S For all the sentiment, it was obvious that Manson was right to leave not just Edinburgh, but the UK.