Placebo @ Albert Hall, Manchester, 11 Oct

The nineties veterans bring a hastily-scheduled twentieth birthday party to Manchester tonight, via Blackpool, for a nostalgic trip down memory lane

Live Review by Joe Goggins | 13 Oct 2017

A cursory glance over the destinations on this particular leg of the latest Placebo tour will swiftly make it clear that they were aiming to play to provincial audiences this time out. Just four shows in, and that admirable resolution has come unstuck. It's by no fault of the band's own, of course. The decidedly non-metropolitan town they'd hoped to play – the thumpingly unglamorous seaside resort of Blackpool – was rendered unsuitable at the eleventh hour, with the Empress Ballroom encountering issues with the structural reliability of the ceiling, and not for the first time.

Brian Molko and Stefan Oldsdal, who are for all intents and purposes Placebo between them these days, needed to either move the show to Manchester – where they headlined the Manchester Arena with the same set last December – or call it off entirely. It's to the duo's credit that they plumped for the former option. This is, therefore, a thoroughly intimate version of the twentieth anniversary set that those who assembled at the end of last year enjoyed, and Molko is under no illusions about how special that might prove.

Attendees are warned ahead of the 8.45pm stage time that if the band should spot cameras in use in the crowd, they'll walk off and not return. This sounds an altogether idle threat until, two songs in, Molko enforces it, stopping Jesus' Son twice before the culprits get the message. It's only eight years since this band packed out the G-Mex over the road. This private audience is one to be cherished.

Pure Morning still rings out with menace as the evening's owner, and I Know highlights how raw the band's self-titled debut was – emotionally as much as instrumentally. An unused video for ironclad classic Every You Every Me, preceding the band's entrance, serves as a sharp reminder of the degree to which Placebo provoked controversy at the height of their powers. The set's mercifully light on newer cuts, and instead, the back half of the show sees Song to Say Goodbye, Infra-Red and Nancy Boy aired, in front of a capacity crowd hungry for the hits. 

It's worth noting that Placebo are a band who quite aggressively fended off the idea of nostalgic delves into the back catalogue for many years; Molko swore blind, for example, that he'd never do Pure Morning again, ostensibly on the basis that the lyrics were embarrassing – on that front, it's worth mentioning that he apparently had no problem with recent single Too Many Friends, which opens with the line 'My computer thinks I'm gay / I threw that piece of junk away'...

Regardless, tonight represents a frankly irresistible stroll down memory lane from a band that we never thought we'd get it from. The future remains cloudy – how do they go back to infuriating, all-new sets after this? – but until then, this is a superior nostalgia trip. Jump on board while you can.

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