today I will take you to one amazing concert that took place on March 13, 2004.
✨๐ซ๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐?✨
Do you remember the spirited Brian with a short cheerful hairstyle and strongly made-up eyes, thanks to which I lost the firm ground under my feet and forgot about the reality around me ...
It was a tour with then new album "Sleeping With Ghosts" on which music with a typical Placebo signature took on a completely new dimension thanks to the electronic arrangement of producer Jim Abiss ...
๐ "The electronic element is indeed very present in Sleeping With Ghosts, but I think when we listen to the album, we don't have the feeling Placebo is trying to sound electronic. We tried above all to refine and reconcile all the best elements which we experimented on our three previous albums, while trying to make this album current. 2003, not 1968."
(๐ต๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ 2003)
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| Placebo in Perth 2004. Photo credit unknown |
… ๐ด๐๐ โ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ค ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐ 2016, ๐ต๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ ๐๐ ๐กโ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ข๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ค๐ :
๐ Sleeping With Ghosts
Brian: "This album is a bit of a wild card. I actually like this record because it's one of most sonically daring and electronic sounding records. It's the perfect mixture of what we were trying to do, which was fuse our sound with vintage synthesizers and old school analog recording techniques. It was around that time that Stefan and I began our obsession with old synthesizers, and we just couldn't stop collecting. A vintage synth is a very guilty pleasure for us. We find them very sexy and irresistible to buy if we see one, even if we don't need it."
๐ธThe ghosts in the title seem to detail a number of your past relationships, or the ghosts of them.
Brian: "Yeah, if I remember correctly, I was trying to lyrically explore memory and how reliable, how truthful memories are. Both the visual memories you re-experience but also your emotional memories, and I guess I was asking myself the question, "How accurate is it?" I think in one way or another, as time passes, we become film directors with our memories. We do our own director's cut of what's happened to us, and within that was this aspect of meditating the past romantic experiences and trying to sing about them in as abstract way as possible"
๐ธWere you happy with the results?
Brian: "Yeah. I remember being very happy. I felt that record had a lot of color to it, so it pleased me at the time. Sorry, I never look back so this is hard."
⭐๐น⭐
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| Photo credit: Jo Stelmach |
๐น๐๐๐ ๐กโ๐ ๐ด๐ข๐ ๐ก๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ก๐๐ข๐, โ๐๐๐ ๐ค๐ โ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐ข๐ก๐๐๐ข๐ ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ค ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐ ๐๐ฆ ๐ต๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ก๐ ๐กโ๐ ๐ด๐ข๐ ๐ก๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ก๐๐ก๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฝ ๐๐๐ ๐ผ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ค ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ข ๐ ๐๐๐ก ๐๐ ๐๐ก:
๐
๐ธ P: Triple J Breakfast, we’re joined by Brian Molko from Placebo... Brian, when we’re doing this interview, it’s the day of your Sydney concert on your tour, that you’re going around... It’s about 1:30 in the afternoon, where does this put you in the preparation for a gig night? Do you start thinking about the gig during the day, or is it just, you know, half an hour before the gig? What’s the sort of preparation on a gig day?
Brian: "I don’t really start thinking about the gig until we actually get to sound check... You know, if we’re touring around Europe or something, in a tour bus... then you know, we’ll spend most of the day sleeping. We’ll probably get up around 3 and start sound checking around 4. Erm, on a day like this, you know, I chuckled to myself as I was on the beach this morning, you know, sunning myself... and swimming around in God’s swimming pool and thinking about how miserable and rainy it was in London, you know. So that’s kind of how I’ve prepared today’s gig, very very relaxed, you know, getting up early and getting some rays."
๐ธ P: Well, we’ve been playing English Summer Rain... It’s the single we’ve been playing at the moment for your tour. If you were going to write a song about an Australian weather condition, rather than English Summer Rain, what would you call the song?
Brian: "Oh God, I don’t know… Erm, “Sand in the vaseline”… How’s that one?"๐
๐ธ P: Nice… So you said about the sound check, do you go through the same sort of thing each night, or do you do different things before the gig? Do you actually have a structure?
Brian: "Well… you kind of… because by nature what we do is very chaotic, and nomadic and we’re quite schizophrenic people, you know, you kind of crave a bit of a structure, you know, and erm... so what we normally do is sound check maybe for about 45 minutes and try and get an early dinner… because you can’t eat too close to show time, otherwise you feel heavy and you can still taste your dinner while you’re jumping around and trying to rock, you know. And then usually start having a couple of beers about two hours before the show, play some banging hip hop tunes and just try and get the energy levels up… take a lot of vitamins."
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| Placebo in Perth 2004. Photo credit unknown |
Brian: "Exactly, yeah."
๐ธ P: I always wondered this, how much does.. ‘cos I do stand up comedy and obviously, it’s very reliant on, you know, the audience… In a rock show, can it really make a big difference, between the audience being a good audience or a bad audience?
Brian: "Absolutely. You know, it’s kind of… it’s like sex, you know. It makes a big difference, you know, both…"
๐ธ P: If you’ve got an audience?!?
Brian: "No, not if you’ve got an audience, no!.. It’s like, you know, if somebody… if the person who you’re in bed with is making as much effort as you, you know, there’s nothing worse than a plank… You know, if you’ve made all that effort, all the drinks you’ve bought, you know, all the witticisms and charm you’ve put on, you know, kind of thing… there’s nothing worse than somebody that just lays there. And similarly… you know, and similarly with an audience, you know, you need… you need feedback from them, you need to have an exchange of energy, you know.. All good art, whether it’s painting, you know, or live music, you know, the artist takes a step towards the viewer or the audience… and they have to take a step towards them as well, for it to be a certain synergy."
๐ธ P: And your show is a lot like sex as in it’s good, if it goes on for an hour and a half, and if people clap enough you do an encore…
Brian: "Exactly." /.../
⭐๐น⭐
So, friends, are you looking forward to the next Placebo concert? I know I don't have to ask you at all ...
To entice you even more, let's take a look at the video from the concert in Perth, which was the first stop in the Australian part of this tour.
