Placebo are going on a huge UK tour next year

That's really all there is to this story, apart from the observation that they're not small venues, but they're, shall we say "cosier" than the venues they played the last time they did a big UK tour:

25/02:Dublin Olympia
26/02:Belfast Waterfront Hall
28/02:Edinburgh Corn Exchange
1/03:Glasgow o2 Academy
3/03:Aberdeen Music Hall
4/03:Newcastle o2 Academy
6/03:Hull City Hall
7/03:Blackburn King George’s Hall
9/03:Leeds o2 Academy
10/03:Liverpool Guild Of Students
12/03:Manchester o2 Apollo
13/03:Sheffield o2 Academy
15/03:Norwich UEA
16/03:Leicester De Montfort Hall
18/03:Birmingham o2 Academy
19/03:Bristol Colston Hall
21/03:Bournemouth o2 Academy
22/03:Southend Cliffs Pavillion
24/03:London Hammersmith Apollo

Here's a lovely creative commons image of Brian Molko from 2007:

Image by Marinjo_zg under CC-BY licence.