People were there to jump up and down, but how should they react when confronted with keyboards, drum machines, and a mass of solid energy?

Well, after the initial confusion passed, the audience really started getting into The Faint. It's hard not to get into a band that plays with such a huge amount of intensity. It feels as if the band have stolen Leftfield's sound-system; the bass grabs you right by the throat with alarming intensity, an intensity that's shared by vocalist Todd Baechele as he leaps from keyboard to mic and then across the stage in a way that makes MC Hammer look like he was suffering with arthritis. Or maybe it was the intensity of the songs. On CD, The Faint make great electro-pop songs, yet live they turn these songs into epic stompalongs.

'Worked Up So Sexual', 'Agenda Suicide', 'Call Call', and 'Your Retro Career Melted', all shake the foundations of the Octagon, not to mention the foundation off the now-smiling goth kids' faces, by using beats harder than Nine Inch Nails and tunes funkier than Daft Punk, without managing to slip into pretentiousness.

After 25 minutes it was all over, a silence fell upon the octagon, and people tried to figure out just what happened. A stunned silence. Tonight The Faint provided the perfect short sharp shop treatment to a bemused Placebo audience, winning them over, and blasting the headliners straight off the stage.