Dear soulmates, today I want to invite you to an interview that ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ง ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ค๐จ did before a concert in Leicester as part of their Loud Like Love Tour in the UK in March 2015.
Brian admits his reluctance to tolerate fans watching a live concert through the screens of their cell phones, and also devotes a few words to an earlier edition of "Selected," which we know is a book containing lyrics to Brian's songs.
⭐๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ⭐
 |
| Photo credit: Screenshots from LLL UK Tour 2015. Photo edit: by Marti |
⭐ Brian isn't so much prickly as honest. Which is good. You wouldn't want tried-and-tested PR spiel from the frontman of Placebo, would you? Just for good measure, when we ask how the rest of his day might get better:
"That's my business, not yours."
Moving on, then. Placebo, one of the alternative rock bands of the '90s, whose bitter, cynical lyrics soundtracked the lives of thousands, are touring the UK. After shifting millions of albums and playing bigger venues across the world, this one is kind of back to basics.
๐ธ "We haven't done a regional UK tour in a long time so it feels like we're very much going back to our roots," says Brian.
"We're playing smaller venues, with a more intimate kind of energy with the audience. We do try to make an emotional connection with the audience. It's not just about playing songs.
We want to create a collective euphoria, a synergy. We need that connection, otherwise it becomes mechanical and soulless for us.
In a smaller venue, that energy comes quicker; the connection is a little easier to make – as long as not too many people are busy looking at their phones instead of the gig."
⭐ While Placebo's music has stood the test of time – the band are 20 years and six albums down the line from their self-titled debut – Brian is not convinced by this change in gig crowds.
"I think it's a shame because what they're documenting is inferior," he says. "They're missing the moment completely."
"Placebo play very loud – the microphone on your smart device cannot handle the volume at which we play. The sound, will be terribly distorted, because people moving around are going to be shaky. You're going to miss out on what you pay good money to see. I just don't get it.
Every now and then some idiot shows up with an iPad and just blocks the view for about five or six people behind them."
 |
| Photo vredit. Felix Kรคstle |
⭐ Be warned. If you pull out filming equipment when Placebo come to Leicester later this month, Brian may well pull you up on it.
"I do, sometimes. Sometimes it's not so bad, but if I find it frustrating I will, particularly if the entire front row when you walk out is looking at a phone from the moment the first song begins. On a good day, it's distracting; on a bad day, I actually find it quite insulting."
๐ธ "If I get frustrated, it's difficult. I deal with it, just as I would if a fight breaks out in the audience. I have a unique vantage point and it is incredibly disturbing to see the hatred in these people's eyes sometimes. It affects me emotionally."
It's very different to the days when the band formed.
 |
| Photo credit: Thomas Niedermรผller |
They were mesmeric, transcendental moments for me. I don't understand why people wouldn't want to join me in that."
Having said all that, Brian says he enjoys it more now than he did way back when the band was at the height of its success, "because now I perform without the aid of any controlled substances or intoxicants."
๐ธ "We're choosing to do this tour for the fans and for ourselves. For the experience. To have fun. We want to enjoy ourselves." /¤¤¤/
⭐ You get the impression Brian isn't one for looking back. And yet, last year he released a book containing his own selection of lyrics from throughout his career at the helm of the band.
"It was offered to me by a small publishing house and it was a long, drawn-out process for me because I have a very dysfunctional relationship with a lot of what I've written. Not many people get an opportunity to publish a book, though, so that was the attraction.
But I tell you, it was not an easy experience for me. It took about six months. I had to select what was going to be published and I was confronted with a lot of writing which I thought was either naive, amateuristic or just not very good."
๐ธ It's better now, he says. "I wrote a lot of material under the influence and I think sometimes that worked out really well and sometimes it worked out really badly," he says. "I'm just very, very self-critical."
⭐ "We always set the bar higher, that's just something we do. Each new album is an almost allergic reaction to its predecessor."
(๐ฟ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ก๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ข๐๐ฆ ๐๐๐. ๐๐๐๐โ 2015)๐
⭐๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ⭐
After reading such an interview, there are a lot of questions, don't you think?
๐ The first one is - to use these technologies at the concerts or not?
๐ Is it okay to shoot someone on the mobile phone who does not want it?
๐ And how do we explain to Brian our hypocrisy that we have an understanding for his feelings, but we really enjoy rare footage from concerts that have no official record?
How much poorer would we be if we didn't have YouTube full of videos from Placebo fans?
 |
| Photo credit: Info Music |
But beware - the first video is angry Brian throwing himself at a fan with a video camera ... So we all know that he perceives it really emotionally.
๐ถ Placebo Brazil 2005
https://bit.ly/3f60IZ3
๐ถ Placebo "Exit Wounds" Leicester 2015
https://bit.ly/3vRv48z
๐ถ Placebo "Rob The Bank" London 2015
https://bit.ly/33sFE9U
๐ถ Placebo "Too Many Friends" Sheffield 2015
https://bit.ly/2RHcDV4
๐ถ Placebo "B3" Birmingham 2015
https://bit.ly/3exMJfy
๐ถ Placebo "MEDS" Manchester 2015
https://bit.ly/3y0NC8c
๐ถ Placebo "I Know" Belfast 2015
https://bit.ly/3bhjz2m
Post by Marti
