Flamboyant rock band Placebo have notched up 20 years since a brief encounter on a railway platform saw the launch of a musical phenomenon.

Founder members Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal are marking their special anniversary with a UK tour, including a gig in Swindon's Oasis Leisure Centre on Tuesday, October 17, from 7pm, and the release of a new single.

The musicians both attended the American International School of Luxembourg but did not actually meet until 1994 when they were both back in the UK. Stefan was making his way home from guitar lessons when Brian spotted him standing on Kensington Railway Station. As a fellow guitar man he invited Stefan to a local gig where he was playing, and that's where the magic happened and Placebo was born. They took the name from its literal meaning translated from Latin which is: I shall please.

As part of their anniversary celebrations the band have released their compilation album, A Place For Us To Dream, and an EP with the new single, Jesus' Son, and have now embarked on their anniversary tour that began in Denmark and stops off in Swindon this month.

"This tour is very much for the fans and a chance for us to revisit a lot of our early material. So, if you want to see us play songs like Pure Morning and Nancy Boy which we haven't played in almost ten years and may not play again, then you had better come along,'' said Brian.

The band have also released an EP and short film called Life's What You Make It, which is the story of those living with an apocalyptic back drop of first world waste, on location in a real life electronic waste dump in the former wetlands of Accra in Ghana.

Brian said: “I told film maker Sasha Rainbow that she had balls of steel for actually daring to go film on location in Ghana and that, no, we would not be coming, since we were timid little souls.''

The 20th-anniversary celebrations are to be completed with an online auction of rarities, memorabilia and personal items, to raise money for The CALMzone [ C.A.L.M The Campaign Against Living Miserably] & HDF Mercy Centre [The Mercy Centre, Bangkok]. For more details visit http://www.placeboworld.co.uk/

Tickets to see Placebo in Swindon are £41.25 or tickets plus A Place for Us to Dream 2CD at £6.99 (1 per order) available from http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/Oasis-Leisure-Centre-Swindon-tickets-Swindon/venue/254574