I didn't know that Ultrasound were going to be the support band,
which is just as well, because on the radio I thought they came across
as a very average indie pop band. But since I didn't know who they were
at the time it meant I could be totally unbiased.
So anyway, my first impression was "hey, this is pretty good", quite a heavy indie guitar rock kind of sound, with the girl on bass adding some nice backing vocals. Then a couple of songs into the set, they got a bit "samey", very indie, and then they did the 2 or 3 songs which I had heard on the radio which I didn't like very much, but they sounded much better live than studio recorded. I think this is partly because the bassist uses her voice much better to contrast with the male vocalist live, especially on the last song in the set where she showed incredible vocal skills.
So all in all, I would say that anyone who likes them will love them live, and anyone like myself, who is not too keen, may be converted to quite liking them, live at least!
Placebo came on stage after a dragged out guitar instrumental to flashing lights and much applause. The stage was decorated with a lots of such lights, strobes, spotlights, chandeliers and a red velvet drape as a backdrop.
Like Mansun 2 nights ago they pretty much just got up onto the stage, played there songs and didn't really say very much, apart from introducing songs and saying thank you. Again this was pretty much a set of all the singles plus a few other songs thrown in. I must say the did a damn fine job of the songs the played, especially the slow version of "Teenage Angst" which they played in the encore.
On thing that I did find strange was that the usual line up, (Stefan Olsdal, bass; Brian Molko, Guitar and vocals; Steven Hewitt, drums), was accompanied by someone on keyboards, but when Stefan played guitar, they keyboardist would play bass, and hide behind the speakers so he was hardly visible, also when Brian introduced the band, the mystery keyboardist was left out!
In short, Placebo are a top band, and well worth seeing live, although there
is not much interaction with the crowd, live they are very tight, and full of
energy.