Placebo to perform in Riga with a show built around their debut album
British rock band Placebo will play at Xiaomi Arena in Riga on 16 October, on a tour marking 30 years since their debut album. Latvian daily Diena looks back at the band as one of the defining acts of the 1990s.
The British alternative rock band Placebo will perform at Xiaomi Arena in Riga on 16 October at 8 p.m. The concert is part of a tour dedicated to the group's debut album, released in 1996. The set will focus on that record and on the second album, Without You I’m Nothing (1998). Tickets sold through the Biļešu serviss network cost between 74.61 and 91.33 euros.
Why the band is tied to the 1990s
The author of the piece in the Latvian newspaper Diena regards Placebo as one of the most characteristic bands of the 1990s. He describes their sound as powerful and previously unheard, and singles out frontman Brian Molko's nasal voice. The group started as a trio: Molko, bassist Stefan Olsdal and a series of drummers, of whom Steve Hewitt stayed longest before leaving in 2007 over disagreements. Today there are six musicians on stage, while the core line-up is Molko and Olsdal.
Several facts are noted about the band. David Bowie sings a duet with Molko on the single version of the title track of Without You I’m Nothing. The British magazine Kerrang! named Placebo best new band in 1997 and honoured Molko as an outstanding songwriter in 2006. Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst, meanwhile, repeatedly voiced negative views about Placebo from the stage in the late 1990s. The author believes the band reached its fullest form on the 2000 album Black Market Music and describes their later records as running on inertia.
Local echoes and the new edition
In the 1990s Riga had its own Molko look-alikes, such as Elviss Zants, who with Evija Trofimova published the magazine Indiesque, and Kristaps Straume, singer of the band Nohow.
This year a 30th-anniversary edition of the debut, Placebo Re:created, was released. The vinyl version includes a 45 RPM single with Drowning by Numbers and H. K. Farewell, tracks previously found only as hidden songs on CD versions of the first two albums.
