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El Capatain Vs Rock Sound!

Reading Bennett’s adventures in Mexico with Nightwish in this month’s Rock Sound reminded me of the last RS visit to the country.

Reading Bennett’s adventures in Mexico with Nightwish in this month’s Rock Sound reminded me of the last RS visit to the country. Me and Snapper Crane tagged along with Placebo for a few dates in 2004… and we weren’t prepared for what we saw, let me tell you! Aside from the shanty towns lining the roads to and from the airports, guns trained on me for my pink hair (at one point Brian Molko offered me a wig) and the ‘taxis’ which were green VW Beetles that were virtually fit for the scrap (I think ours was held together by a skipping rope, some Prit Stick and plenty of good luck), we weren’t prepared to get mobbed – along with the band! Fans in Mexico are probably some of the most ‘enthusiastic’ we’ve ever come across, and when the band hit Tower Records for a signing session, there were scenes of mass hysteria, crying, begging and when the band was bundled out – RS was surrounded by a baying mob of the said ‘enthusiasts’ and had to fight to get into the car! And while we were busy swigging tequila with the band on the way to the stadium in Mexico City, we noticed the surrounding cars on the highway packed to the gills with Placebo fans (they were literally bursting out of the windows), and one kid running like fuck (that’s right, ON FOOT!) trying desperately to keep up with us. Wild.

Luckily RS didn’t find that in the least bit disconcerting – we’d already had the worst fright the night before in Guadalajara, in an incident that Snapper and myself refer to as ‘El Capatain’. In fact, we were just pissing ourselves about it on the blower the other day… Picture the scene: an open ancient amphitheatre, a midnight blue sky with a crescent moon. Placebo are playing ‘The Bitter End’, me and Crane are stood by the mixing desk, chuffed. I turned to speak to him and he was gone. Yep, GONE. Weird. A few songs later, he is still gone. Then, I turn again to see a rather shaken and white-faced snapper is there in exactly the same place, although this time he’s counting his blessings. And so would you if half a dozen armed police guards (the same ARMED guards who were lining the front of the stage preventing stage diving) were trying to bundle you in a police van and take you away! Apparently, they’d seen said Snapper toking on contraband and not just felt his collar, they’d very nearly ripped it off in their effort to extract him and chuck him in jail. Fortunately the guy from Virgin records, Mexico, had seen what was occurring and stepped in. If he hadn’t been so quick off the mark, Crane might still be languishing in a Mexican jail now… In case you are wondering, had the said Snapper been wearing his camera bag, none of this would have happened - he’d have taken those armed guards out if they dared touch it…