Placebo @ Carling Academy

Fans of Placebo, I assumed, were disappearing like Brian Molko's embattled follicles. But, playing to a packed academy, the wee pixie chap and his band were met with riotous applause, massed excitement and a reception you'd expect them to have recieved ten years ago. Real abandon was reserved for the old tunes, but all the new ones, were nodded along to politely by the older, Brit-pop remembering grown ups and moshed to by the new legions of black clad fans on holiday from Royal Exchange Square. Miraculously, the band are still churning out hits that will not be to everybody's taste, but to a gender-confused, teenage misery guts or nostalgic britpopper, they're great. Placebo have never been the best band in the world but by virtue of their dogged cling to fame, resistance to critical brickbats and sheer bloody-mindedness, they deserve to have a hat or two tipped their way. [Jasper Hamill]