No Rock And Roll Fun

SEX AND, INEVITABLY, DRUGS AND ROCK AND ROLL: No Rock takes its arse out to see Placebo at Liverpool "Academy" - it's the Uni Guild and always will be, dammit - on Thursday night:
So, there were a few kids there who'd have still been choosing between Sporty, Scary and Baby when Placebo were making their first frantic fist-shakings - they were easy to spot, all acne and Slipknot tshirts - but, generally, the cut off point for the lower age of the audience would have been round twenty. Placebo have matured; so have their audience.

Chattering their teeth like they'd taken as much speed as a US marine on a four am stakeout for saddam, the 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster support slot looks like they're struggling to keep up with their elders. Has anyone commented on just how cuboid Guy McKinght's head is before? It looks like a cornflake packet with a lot of hair on it. He starts out doing his best Nick Cave fronting a pub rock band; then the pub rock becomes a bit more industrialised - Wetherspoons Rock? - and Guy starts to revert to his everyday voice. It's magnificent for a while, but by the end of their set the need for speed (as in playing everything at a pace rather than - or maybe because of - a need to take a top up) has rendered everything down to a slightly icky mush of sameiness. They have some good things to share, but you can just hear Mark Lamarr, five years hence, asking the Buzzcocks panel to identify their bassist - "Is it number one, 80's matchbox... number two, 50's throwback..."

Coated with a gallon of sweat from the outset, Brian Molko looks like Nicola McAullife's younger, sexier sister. He's drinking tea - showing off the teabag the way L7 used to dangle their tampons - and, contrary to the small print on the tickets ("no refunds if he's huffy") he seems to be having the time of his life. Is it just me, or does Stefan seem to have provided the inspiration of Sacha Baron-Cohen's new dimwitted attempt at a gay clone?

Placebo gigs should be organised on wedding lines, with people entering the venue being asked "Lamacq or Kerrang?" to decide whether their connection to the band was forged through their fey outsider indie appeal or because they have loud enough drums that you can ignore them being kinda faggy. Live, it's the rocky side which wins out, and when they play the stuff from Sleeping With Ghosts you get the feeling that the versions you're hearing are the forms the songs should have taken on the album; the versions they'd have gone with had Black Market Music not ended up as Marked Down Overstock to quite the same extent. Someday, some band is going to twig that sticking an MP3 recorder on the mixing desk, and making every live track available to fans for downoad at a few pence a shot is one of those business propositions that is a no-brainer; and it might take a band like Placebo to make that leap - a band who treat their songs like they treat their bodies, a band who - when it's a night on the town know you have to gussy and pluck and glam and redress for the occassion. Some songs get a wonderbra, like Taste In Men - tightly gathered and forced upwards. Some are given an Audrey Hepburn makeover - Every Me is slowed down and delivered very precisely. Your friends are refreshed, given new trousers and a big hickey. It's not just playing through the tunes, it's playing with them.

Brian calls his guitar a bitch - "she's worse than me" - and adds a whole new angle to the phrase "spanking his guitar" - and the whole thing is topped off with the Pixies Where Is My Mind? (although - seriously - they should consider doing River Euphrates instead). Overall... can I? should I? Oh yes... overall, it was just Molkorific.