Last Friday (9/25) Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal kicked off their 30th Anniversary Tour with a deliberately small warm-up show at Krakatoa in Mérignac, France, just outside Bordeaux.
The 1,445-capacity room had only reopened to the public two weeks earlier after completing a major two-year renovation. The upgrades increased the main room from by nearly 250 people, installed balconies, and created an intimate new club that can accommodate 258 partygoers.
Krakatoa has been a mainstay of the Bordeaux music scene for more than 35 years. It evolved from an old municipal hall and into one of the best music venues in the region, receiving official props from the French government in 1996.
It just so happens Placebo released their self titled debut album in '96. What a better place to begin the victory lap?
This tour Molko (vocals, guitar) and Olsdal (bass, guitar, keyboards, backing vocals) are joined by Bill Lloyd (keyboards, bass, guitar), Nick Gavrilovic (guitar, lap steel, keyboards), Matt Lunn (drums), and Angela Chan (violin, keyboards, percussion) as they travel around the world through early next year.
In 1996 Placebo were living a charmed life. Despite only having played a handful of shows, the record industry knew they were special and they were courted by many labels. The band signed a multi-album deal with the Virgin subsidiary Hut Records that February.
Their debut dropped in June through Hut in the UK, and in the States they were serviced by Caroline Records.
Rather than simply fine tuning Placebo for its 30th anniversary and maybe adding some bonus tracks, Molko and Olsdal created PLACEBO RE, using their original masters but improving on it with the hindsight and skill of three decades of playing those bangers live.
“We didn’t want to do something lazy with this 30-year celebration. Most bands remaster an album and make you try to buy it again,” Molko told Rolling Stone UK.
Revisiting those 1996 tapes so closely was a learning lesson for Molko who hadn't thought much of their first offering. He had remembered the debut as being a little janky.
“I’d created in my mind an image of this record being budget sounding and ineptly executed, and that was just a complete fabrication," he told RS. "There was nothing budget about the sound," he realized.
The setlist for the tour is based around their first album, naturally, but also its followupWithout You I'm Nothing. Each album is allotted eight songs on the set.
“Pure Morning” opened the show and then came “Come Home,” which hadn’t been played since 2006. That ping-ponging between the two records set the tone that the night would be more unpredictable than expected.
“You Don’t Care About Us” returned for the first time in 25 years, “Without You I’m Nothing” was dusted off for the first time since 2018, and “Allergic (to Thoughts of Mother Earth)” was performed for the first time in 12 years.
The regular set concluded with their hit “Nancy Boy,” which Molko told the magazine he nearly tossed the song because it was too simple and clean compared to the dirty weird NYC post-punk sounds of he was vibing to from Sonic Youth.
When “Nancy Boy” unexpectedly reached #4 in the UK in 1997, Placebo proved that all those swarming record execs were correct to court them.
Suddenly they were huge.
“We got to meet Depeche Mode for the first time, which was fantastic. Then after we performed on Top of the Pops, there were something like 43 complaints because people couldn’t work out whether I was a boy or a girl,” he told RSUK.
The band kept the live debut of their new song, "Helen Keller" for the larger crowd that awaited them in Portugal a few days later (9/28) at the Super Block Arena.
The 30th Anniversary Tour continues through Europe, the UK and Latin America.
Tickets available on the Placebo website.
The 30th Anniversary Tour
10/3 Sant Jordi Club, Barcelona, Spain
10/5 Zénith de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
10/7 Zénith Nantes Métropole, Saint-Herblain, France
10/9 Rockhal, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
10/12 QUARTERBACK Immobilien Arena, Leipzig, Germany
10/15 Arena Vilnius, Vilnius, Lithuania
10/16 Xiaomi Arena, Riga, Latvia
10/18 Veikkaus Arena, Helsinki, Finland
10/20 Annexet, Stockholm, Sweden
10/22 Oslo Spektrum, Oslo, Norway
10/24 K.B. Hallen, Copenhagen, Denmark
10/26 Barclays Arena, Hamburg, Germany
10/27 Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam, Netherlands
10/29 Festhalle, Frankfurt, Germany
11/1 AFAS Dome, Antwerp, Belgium
11/2 LANXESS Arena, Cologne, Germany
11/4 Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland
11/6 Unipol Forum, Milan, Italy
11/9 Olympiahalle, Munich, Germany
11/10 Wiener Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria
11/13 Papp László Budapest Sportaréna, Budapest, Hungary
11/15 Sportovní hala Fortuna, Prague, Czech Republic
11/16 Uber Arena, Berlin, Germany
11/18 Atlas Arena, Łódź, Poland
11/21 Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, Stuttgart, Germany
11/23 LDLC Arena, Lyon, France
11/25 Accor Arena, Paris, France
11/28 Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham, England
11/30 OVO Hydro, Glasgow, Scotland
12/2 3Arena, Dublin, Ireland
12/4 Co-op Live, Manchester, England
12/5 OVO Arena Wembley, London, England
12/7 Utilita Arena, Cardiff, Wales
