Placebo: Brixton Academy, London

IT'S HALLOWEEN, so it's fitting that the evening's main attraction is a petulant succubus wearing a tight purple suit and nail varnish. If you hadn't seen Placebo before, you'd assume that singer Brian Molko's garish outfit represented an effort to get festive for the night of the undead. You'd be wrong. Unlike the hulking male fan who has turned up in a witch's hat and is now huddled in the balcony looking desperately self-conscious, Molko wears outlandish clothes and make-up whether he's playing to a sellout crowd or washing the Porsche. Molko's devotees take his sartorial foolishness as evidence of depth, which is the only explanation for his dreary band's popularity.