Placebo frontman Brian Molko once described his band as “music for outsiders, by outsiders”. While it’s true that the London-based, multi-national trio initially traded on a deliberately confrontational, stylised vision of promiscuous pansexuality, they’ve also racked up album sales in the millions – proving, perhaps, that in the end, most of us are outsiders in some shape or form.
In recent years, they’ve toned down the sleaze, but have continued to write songs that are as provocative, punchy and – despite the odd clunky rhyme from Molko – perceptive as ever. This, their second live DVD, captures them in concert at London’s Brixton Academy in 2010, with a handful of bonus live tracks for extra lubrication. They might be older and wiser, but their trademark shimmering, sexual energy is still in evidence in the raw and agitated performances of Nancy Boy, Every You Every Me and Teenage Angst.
Elsewhere, there’s a fraught rendition of The Bitter End, a cover of Nirvana’s All Apologies and the frenetic finale of Taste In Men. Yet while you can clearly see the sweat pour down Molko’s face, you never quite feel the energy that makes it happen – making this one more for the fans, rather than outsiders.
