Garbage's Butch Vig reflects on 'Beach Ball-gate': 'It's like she was the antichrist!'

Garbage had an eventful 2025 in between releasing a new album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, and embarking on what they called their final North American headlining tour. But perhaps the biggest Garbage story of the year was when Shirley Manson profanely told a concertgoer to stop throwing a beach ball during a festival in Australia.

"We were sort of shocked that that became, as we call it, 'Beach Ball-gate,'" drummer Butch Vig tells ABC Audio.

Video shared by Garbage showed Manson calling the beach ball thrower a " f****** d*****bag." She later posted to social media, "I make NO APOLOGIES whatsoever for getting annoyed at beachballs at shows. I joined a band because I HATED THE F****** BEACH."

Manson's personal history with the beach aside, Vig maintains that most musicians would agree with her general sentiment regarding beach balls at shows.

"Almost 90% of performers, 99, are gonna say, 'We don't like beach balls, we don't want any distractions,'" Vig says. "You don't want people throwing s*** at gigs."

As such, the intensity of the response to the incident came as a surprise to the Garbage camp.

"The vitriol and the blowback was crazy, it's like [Manson] was the antichrist!" Vig laughs. "C'mon, it's just a beach ball!"

"We were laughing, in the paper there the next day it was like every major newspaper, it was like one of the big headlines," he continues. "I mean, seriously? She just told this guy to get rid of the damn beach ball."

Unfortunately for Garbage, Vig thinks that Beach Ball-gate may have the opposite effect of what was intended.

"I suspect in future festivals there will be some beach balls at Garbage shows," Vig says. "But that's alright, Shirley will just roll with it."