It had started innocently enough. A few drinks in a Melbourne restaurant developed into a full-blown session after the night's show at the Hi Fi Bar. It was a fair concert, incidentally - lanky bass player Stefan Olsdal coped manfully with a broken wrist, while a second guitarist, visible by the drum riser, added lines where needed. The partisan crowd particularly loved Cruel Intentions theme song "Every You Every Me" and the libidinous debut single "Nancy Boy". Anyway, the after-show degenerated into an impromptu karaoke session. The Rolling Stone journalist led the assembled in a rousing chorus of Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Woman" - a great song to sing to Placebo, incidentally, with their claims of dangerous sexual confusion. Molko retaliated with an inspired reading of Queen's "We Will Rock You", the opening lines changed to "You've got cum on your face / You're a big disgrace."

In the van, the band seranaded the recumbent hack with Sound Of Music lullabies, and got chased down the street outside their St Kilda hotel for their pains. Over the rest of the night we'll draw a discreet veil, but suffice to say that when Rolling Stone turns up at Melbourne Park Arena at 4 p.m. the following afternoon, where Placebo are due to support silverchair, the tour manager is looking grim. All press has been cancelled, and Molko is lying flat out in his back in the band's dressing room, groaning. It's 50/50 whether the band will make it on stage.

The show that night is subdued, oddly sexless. Despite the pent-up sexual frustration steaming off the teenage audience - a sizeable proportion of whom are obviously here to see Placebo - the band fail to spark. Molko barely says a word all night, and Olsdal contents himself with a few waves.

"It helps being a sex symbol," the genial bass player explains later. "If you don't feel like prancing around the stage, you can just stand there and let what you look like do the work."

Placebo certainly had to rely on their charisma that night. Still, as Olsdal says, "This isn't going to last forever, we might as well take advantage of it while we're young."

The situation remains dicey for the next couple of days - at the Rowland S Howard show the following night, Molko has to depart early for fear of contracting tonsillitis. Hewitt is still partying hard, though: "I was up till 11 a.m. this morning," he tells me. "And I got a call from a friend at 11:30 a.m., wanting to go see Bush Tucker Man. I said, 'sorry, mate, but Bush Tucker Man is off.'"

The weekend shows are hit and miss. When I finally catch up with the tour manager to try and arrange more quotes, he's sympathetic but unable to help. "Sorry mate," he says, crackling down the line from Sydney. "We don't even know if Brian's gonna make the gig tonight. He has severe throat problems. After that, we fly back to England to play V99 (which the band subsequently cancelled), and then on to Ireland. If we make those dates even, it'll be an achievement."