Delphine and I found ourselves back down in Shepherds Bush for another of the MTV five night residency shows. This time we were here to see Placebo. I’d seen Placebo live twice before, but both times had been at festivals (Glastonbury and V97) so I was looking forward to seeing them headlining their own gig.

We managed to catch both the support bands this time round too. Scottish band Idlewild who were getting some buzz in the press and would go on to release their debut album, “Hope Is Important”, later in the year. They go on and become quite successful with a couple of top ten albums and a host of Top 40 singles, the biggest of which was “You Held The World In Your Arms” which reached #9 in the UK Singles Chart in 2002. They were very good live too.

Next on the bill were Gomez. Their debut album, “Bring It On”, had recently come out and hit #11 in the UK Charts and they were getting a lot of attention. They had an experimental mix of funk, rock and indie. I hated their sound on record and equally hated them live. They are just really not my type of music – and are actually one of the few types of music that I really can’t stand. Sorry Gomez – not that I suspect they’re too upset as they went on to have a fantastic career.

Placebo came on and previous acts were forgotten. Brian Molko’s voice is fantastic and very distinctive. Placebo were excellent, although they only played a 12 song set it was great to see them live again.

SETLIST

1. Bionic
2. 36 Degrees
3. Drowning by Numbers
4. Allergic (to Thoughts of Mother Earth)
5. Miss Moneypenny
6. Bruise Pristine
7. The Crawl
8. Lady of the Flowers
9. Nancy Boy
10. Teenage Angst
11. Slackerbitch
12. Evil Dildo