NEWS
Rady Shell at Jacobs Park on Aug. 6, 2021.
Gary Payne/Courtesy of San Diego SymphonyA permanent outdoor venue has been a long-time dream for the San Diego Symphony. In summers past, it would take several weeks to build a temporary stage at the top of the season and another two weeks to take it down. But this weekend, the symphony christened its new year-round structure, The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, with three performances, concluding on Sunday with a show by Gladys Knight.
“About 15 years ago, the Orchestra settled here at Embarcadero Marina Park South and it was a temporary venue with no sides, just kind of blowing in the breeze,” says San Diego Symphony CEO Martha A. Gilmer from a venue table overlooking the water. “We wanted it to be a beautiful place for the orchestra to hear themselves and be able to achieve really high-level performances that then can be brought to the audience. Our primary concern was sound.”
The Rady Shell is the centerpiece of the 3.7-acre Jacobs Park, a public space that overlooks the marina and provides a 360-degree view of downtown San Diego. The performance shell features concentric, widening, oval rings as its canopy -- a structure that reaches a height of 57 feet and a width of 92 feet at the front of the stage. For opening weekend, the shell hung over the first few rows of patrons who showed up for concerts from Rafael Payare conducting the San Diego Symphony on Aug. 6, the Symphony's “The Best of Broadway” showcase on Aug. 7 and seven-time Grammy winner Knight, who closed out the series on Aug. 8.
The symphony will work with the Port of San Diego to program 110 days throughout the year. The remainder of the time, the space will continue to function as a public park with revamped basketball courts and exercise areas.
“This is a very unique partnership with the Port. Eighty-five percent of the time this is a public park. People can come and walk around. They can sit and listen to rehearsals. They can watch art being made,” says Gilmer. “Then 15% of the time, we occupy it. Keeping that balance was critical. I think the Port saw this as a real opportunity for activating our coastline and bringing people to the bay that haven’t been down here before.”
For Knight’s performance, the venue was outfitted to welcome 3,500 guests – both seated and spread out on the lawn. The audience, however, extended to passersby who pulled up outside the park gates with blankets and lawn chairs and even the occasional pet. On the water, boats anchored themselves around the shell to take in the show.
The Rady Shell can be configured for up to 10,000 guests and features a nearly 13,000-square-foot open-air dining plaza that can also be utilized for pre-event functions. Gilmer says the Symphony hopes to use the park’s various spaces for free entertainment for locals, multi-stage festivals and more.
“We just want to make sure that art is accessible,” says Gilmer. “As I say, the creative is not exclusive. It is inclusive. That’s really a very important part of the mission.”
The Rady Shell’s upcoming schedule includes Nas with The San Diego Symphony, comedian Sebastian Maniscalco, Smokey Robinson, Brian Wilson, Gary Clark Jr. and plenty of performances from the Orchestra. The Orchestra will also perform alongside popular films like The Goonies and Rocketman.
“I think artists are going to absolutely want to make sure this is part of their tours going forward, because it is a brand-new, state-of-the-art venue,” says Gilmer. “When you’re standing on that stage and you’re looking at this view it is an inspiring place to be.”
NEWS
Placebo have kicked off their 30th anniversary tour by dusting off some tracks for the first time in over 20 years, and also playing new single ‘Helen Keller’ live for the first time.
The new dates come as the band are celebrating the 30 years since they dropped their 1996 debut album. To mark the occasion, they have announced a huge UK and European arena tour, where they have vowed to predominantly play material from their first album and their sophomore record ‘Without You I’m Nothing’.
At the opening night at Krakatoa in Mérignac, France, Brian Molko and co. delivered a stacked 19-song set, which began with ‘Pure Morning’, and immediately went into the first rendition of ‘Come Home’ in 20 years.
Another rarity came straight after, with the first live performance of ‘You Don’t Care About Us’ since 2001, as well as ‘Without You I’m Nothing’ and ‘Allergic (To Thoughts Of Mother Earth)’ which were played for the first time since 2018 and 2014 respectively.
‘Drowning by Numbers’, ‘Bruise Pristine’ and ‘My Sweet Prince’ were all introduced into the setlist for the first time since 2001, ‘Brick Shithouse’ was aired out for the first time since 2003, ‘Scared Of Girls’ was played for the first time since 2010, and both ‘Lady Of The Flowers’ and ‘36 Degrees’ were broken out for the first time in nine years.
The rest of the set was made up of ‘Teenage Angst’, ‘Bionic’, ‘I Know’ and ‘Every You Every Me’, and the band wrapped up the performance with two covers: Depeche Mode’s ‘I Feel You’, and Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’.
It wasn’t until a later show at the Super Bock Arena in Porto, Portugal, that Placebo broke out their new song ‘Helen Keller’ for the first time – playing it 13 songs into the setlist.
Check out more footage from the tour so far below, as well as the setlist from night one.
‘Pure Morning’
‘Come Home’ (First time since 2006)
‘You Don’t Care About Us'(First Time Since 2001)
‘Teenage Angst’
‘Bionic’
‘Without You I’m Nothing” (First Time Since 2018)
‘Allergic (to Thoughts of Mother Earth)” (First Time Since 2014)
‘Drowning by Numbers” (First Time Since 2001)
’36 Degrees” (Alternate Version – First Time Since 2017)
‘I Know’
‘Brick Shithouse’ (First Time Since 2003)
‘Scared of Girls’ (First Time Since 2010)
‘Bruise Pristine” (First Time Since 2001)
‘My Sweet Prince’ (First Time Since 2001)
‘Lady of the Flowers’ (First time since 2017)
‘Nancy Boy’
‘Every You Every Me’
‘I Feel You’ (Depeche Mode cover, live debut)
‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ (Kate Bush cover)
Placebo dropped the single ‘Helen Keller’ on September 28, and it sees them reach back to ‘H.K. Farewell’, a hidden instrumental from the era of their self-titled 1996 debut. In the track, they retain the eerie keyboard melody from the original, and push it to new dimensions with a heavier, more anguished feeling.
The title refers to the American author, who was also a disability rights advocate and political activist, who became deafblind as a young child and went on to become an internationally renowned writer and campaigner.
As well as the tour, Placebo also celebrated the 30th anniversary of their debut by releasing a reimagined version of the record. For the LP, Molko and Stefan Olsdal returned to the original master tapes and reworked all 10 songs from the 1996 record – describing it as a “director’s cut” that helped them inject the original songs with three decades more experience.
The ongoing tour will reach the UK and Ireland in late November and early December, where they will play Nottingham, Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester, London and Cardiff. See all the dates here and find any remaining tickets here.
Dates will head to Latin America in 2027, beginning in São Paulo on February 20 and running through Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Colombia before wrapping up with shows in Guadalajara and Monterrey in March.
Placebo dropped their last album of new material in 2022, with ‘Never Let Me Go’. That record was given a four-star review by NME, which described it as “a renaissance rock record with an experimental edge”, adding that it found Placebo “inspired and ready for a new era”.
