Difficult as it might be to believe, it is now just over twenty years since Placebo first burst onto the scene with their intense, spiky, alternative and always engaging brand of rock music. Since their self-titled debut album was released in 1996, they have built up a back catalogue of a further six studio albums and racked up record sales in excess of 11 million.

To mark their milestone twenty year anniversary of staying the distance, not too many do these days, Placebo are currently in the middle of a lengthy concert tour which is also to support the release of a new career retrospective album, A Place For Us To Dream - 20 Years Of Placebo.

The Placebo touring juggernaut pulled into the Manchester Arena on a cold Monday night in early December but they delivered a blisteringly hot performance that couldn't fail to warm the bodies and souls of all present to witness it.

In an unprecedented year for big/shock losses in the music industry - giants Prince and Bowie(more later on the Bowie/Placebo connection) being the most high profile of the departed, it was actually a nice video montage tribute to Leonard Cohen, another music colossus who passed just last month and who clearly meant a great deal to Placebo, which kick-started proceedings. This gentle start was as sedate as things would get on the night and that video tribute was immediately followed by film footage of an early cut of Every You Every Me, a track and single from Placebo's second album, with the band then taking to the stage amid a thunderous crowd welcome and ripping straight into Pure Morning.

Make no mistake about it, there are few better live bands than Placebo and for over two hours they set about demonstrating and confirming just that and, in the form of androgynous singer Brian Molko with his highly distinctive vocals, they have a frontman who continually holds a crowd's gaze, a quality that only a handful possess - think also Jagger, Stipe and the late Freddie Mercury. New drummer Matt Lunn and guitarist and co-founding band member Stefan Olsdal also deserve special mention too.

The set list on this anniversary tour is, as you would expect, designed to be a real crowd pleaser and in that department Placebo in no way disappointed their fans, playing songs from all periods of their career, even reinstating a few numbers that they haven't played live in a long time. One of the songs making a welcome return to their live show was Without You I'm Nothing, the title track of their 1988 second album, which featured backing vocals from arguably the band's, certainly Molko's biggest hero and influence, David Bowie. This was a most poignant performance of the night, accompanied as it was by film projected onto the huge backdrop screen showing Placebo and Bowie working and recording together. From the get-go Bowie had been a very vocal supporter of Placebo and, that early championing of the group from one of music's most seminal figures, only helped them garner a lot of very important press attention at a crucial time. And so, at the end of the song, it was perhaps fitting that Molko and Olsdal turned their backs to the audience and instead faced the video screen and appeared to give a little bow towards the image of rock music's greatest chameleon.

From that point onwards until the concert's conclusion, the pace of the band's playing just became increasingly more powerful and intense, if that was indeed possible, with epic renditions served up of tracks such as For What It's Worth, Slave To The Wage, Special K, Song To Say Goodbye and The Bitter End. For encores there was a slightly pared down Teenage Angst, a ferocious version of the group's breakthrough single and crowd favourite, Nancy Boy(another song recently added to their set list after a lengthy absence) and Infra-Red. Returning to the stage again for a second and final time Placebo sent their fans home very happy bunnies with their excellent, scorching cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill.