Placebo in concert at Arena of Nîmes - July 7, 2023
I finally saw Placebo live, here's a quick recap
Placebo and me
I have been listening to Placebo for a while - see this article where I briefly explain my "history" with the band.
TL;DR: I've been listening to Placebo since "Without You I'm Nothing" (1998) and followed most of their albums (which I liked), but never saw them live.
When I listened to their last album (Never Let Me Go), I absolutely wanted to see them live, and fortunately for me, Placebo was touring this summer, with one stop at Nîmes, playing in the Arena, which is a place I love, both for its esthetics and acoustics - I've seen Radiohead there several times, as well as Prodigy, and never got disappointed.
Before the gig
I realised it had been 11 years that I didn't go to Nîmes - my last concert was Radiohead in 2012, so I was eager to be back there.
I arrived the day before, went for a run in Nîmes in the morning (going through the Gardens of the Fountain and then Woods of Espeisses), then worked from my hotel till the evening.
I was joined by Clémentine and Guitou, who live nearby and also wanted to see Placebo live. We had a quick snack then headed to the Arena.
Entering the Arena
I was expecting to enter straight into the Arena, since it was 8:30pm when we
showed up and the concert was supposed to start at that time.
So I was surprised to see a rather long queue - in fact, 5 different queues. We
chose the right one and 10 minutes later we were inside.
We had reserved seats in front of the stage (albeit quite high), but it was a
bit packed and not super comfortable (wood banks); Guitou spotted a better
area, so we went there and asked if we could seat there, which was possible.
It was a much nicer spot, with plenty of space and we could even walk upstairs
and look at the city surroundings.
The Concert
The supporting band stopped playing at 9:30pm, and Placebo arrived shortly after 10pm, and started straight with "Forever Chemicals".
Nice announcement
Before the concert started, a recorded announcement from Bryan was played, basically urging the crowd not to spend the whole gig taking pictures or movies and starring at our phones, but rather enjoy the show.
I found it nice and indeed during the concert, I saw only a few smartphones and people taking pictures - although I must confess I took a few pictures at the end of the show.
How the band interacts with the crowd
It's always nice when a band has some nice interactions with the crowd. I'm not saying it's a dealbreaker if they just show up and play then leave, but I find it nice when there's something happening.
Having said that, I'm also used to Radiohead/Thom Yorke's interactions, which are rather minimalistic, so I can live without that.
I'd say Placebo does the minimum, i.e. after a few songs, Bryan addressed the
crowd (in French), saying they were happy to be in this awesome location, and
not to listen to this whole Brexit bullshit, and that Placebo was still very
much an European band.
Other than that, not much - the band played 90 min in a row with almost no pause
between songs - which again is fine.
Strange Feeling
I'm not gonna do a song-by-song review, but rather highlight my thoughts.
Here's the setlist though (which you can also find on setlist.fm):
- Forever Chemicals
- Beautiful James
- Scene of the Crime
- Hugz
- Happy Birthday in the Sky
- Bionic
- Twin Demons
- Surrounded by Spies
- Chemtrails
- Sad White Reggae
- Try Better Next Time
- Too Many Friends
- Went Missing
- Meds
- For What It's Worth
- Slave to the Wage
- Song to Say Goodbye
- Come Undone
- The Bitter End
- Infra-red
Encore:
- Shout
- Fix Yourself
- Running Up That Hill
My gut feeling is that the concert was pretty good, but Placebo played a lot of their last album - which I understand, but to me it felt too much. Clémentine and Guitou had the same feeling, and for them it was even stronger as they barely knew Never Let Me Go.
Fortunately, Setflist.fm has a nice feature which I just discovered, showing a
breakdown of the songs played per album.
For this gig, this gives the below:
=> So 11 out of 23 songs were from Never Let Me Go, almost half of the concert. And the rest was spread across other albums.
Wrap Up
I have mixed feelings about that first Placebo concert: on one hand, I am super happy to have finally seen them, especially in the Arena of Nîmes, but on the other hand it felt too focused on Never Let Me Go, and also too short (only one Encore!)
Now, make no mistake (reference intended): the show was really good, and again it made sense to play a good chunk of Never Let Me Go - it's just that, since it was my first gig, I would have loved getting a bit more older songs.
Tags: Music