Placebo

Over the years Placebo have always put on great shows, whenever I have caught them live. Admittedly I have seen them in numerous places; Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, Chelmsford, and even caught them at their Wembley arena gig a couple of years back. So it is a fair to say that I am a pretty big fan of Placebo.


So it was with some excitement that I trundled down to Nottingham Arena to see them once again, knowing that you could guarantee a night of vibrant, energetic, killer anthems such as ‘Nancy Boy’, ‘Pure Morning’ and ‘This Picture’. Always guaranteed to leave you feeling happy and as if it was money well spent.

However this gig simply wasn’t up to the usual standard. Musically they were hitting the mark with more precision than a laser guided missile and the sound was fabulous. The band had even gone to the trouble of putting fifteen projection screens all over the stage. Although this sounds good in theory, the screens weren’t actually used to project footage of the live band; meaning the people who couldn’t see at the back still couldn’t see. Instead the screens were used all night just to project depressing footage of various images to the audience.


Frontman Brian Molko’s vocals seemed to be strained and rather unpleasant to listen to and at times just felt as if the vocals were floating off into the huge vastness of the half filled arena.

In the past Placebo have been able to get away with not moving around much as they have usually been on a small intimate stage- however on an arena-sized stage this came across as being rather dull. This performance was lacking that vibrant energy that Placebo used to always generate.

The hits were missing and the band never really engaged the audience. Even when ‘Special K’ was belted out, it just didn’t seem to get a reaction from the audience, there was the odd flicker of life from a few people right at the front, but apart from that this was a stone cold lifeless gig.


They did slip in one of the crowd favourite tracks ‘Every Me, Every You’, which admittedly for a split second caused a wave of excitement but it was very short lived.

The absence of their big anthems like ‘Nancy Boy’, ‘This Picture’, and ‘Pure Morning’, just left the fans feeling cheated.

In fact the set bored me so much that I managed to count the amount of people who were in the arena- 4,112 (3050 standing and 1062 in the seats).

This gig was shockingly bad, partly because I know Placebo are able to do so much better when they are at full throttle and in an intimate setting.

This felt like the real Placebo had been kidnapped and we were watching a band that really doesn’t have any effect on anything, so I guess Placebo for this show was an apt name!!

FUTURE GIGS

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