Tuesday 7 September 2010

Muse Live @ Manchester Lancashire County Cricket Club

Extravagant? Check. Ridiculous? Check. Impressive? Check. Muse are certainly going to leave a big void in the world of live music when they take a break from touring following this current three-gig run.

Muse have been wowing crowds for years now, and I expected the show to be impressive. However, what I didn’t expect was the huge triangular stage, lots of flashing lights, a big roaming eye, flying saucers, a moving stage and an overworked projectionist. Exaggerating? Only slightly, it really was a spectacle to behold. With the world seemingly coming to an end around the band, it would be easy to forget that the music is what everyone was there for in the first place.


However, starting with ‘Uprising’ and ‘Supermassive Black Hole’, Muse quickly reminded the audience that it is the music that has made them the biggest live band in the world. Matt Bellamy and Co. were certainly in fine form as they stormed through ‘New Born’, ‘Map Of The Problematique’ and ‘Butterflies & Hurricanes’. Keeping chat to a minimum, the threesome then played ‘Guiding Light’, probably the weakest song from their most recent album, The Resistance. However, the atmosphere was reignited again with ‘Hysteria’ and ‘Citizen Erased’, two epic songs from Absolution and Origins Of Symmetry, respectively. Bellamy demonstrated his real guitar hero skills, often jamming in between songs, leaving the audience spellbound.

More songs off The Resistance followed, with the brilliant ‘MK Ultra’ and ‘Resistance’ being aired live. In fact, many songs from The Resistance sounded much stronger in the live environment. The new album was too clean, the sound was finished and perfect; however, performed live, songs like ‘Unnatural Selection’ and ‘United States Of Eurasia’ sounded raw and effortlessly brilliant.

Yet, the new stuff often paled in comparison to classics such as ‘Feeling Good’ and ‘Time Is Running Out’, which sent the crowd into hysterics from the opening notes. There was still a lot more to come though, and the first encore, including ‘Exogenesis: Symphony, Part 1: Overture’ and ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, was just a taste of what was to come later. After a brief interval, Muse returned for a second encore, starting with ‘Take A Bow’, during which, Bellamy was raised on a platform from the stage, dressed in a flamboyant red/blue lighted suit.

After Bellamy had come down from that literal high, he went straight into the stunning guitar riff of ‘Plug In Baby’ which led to the raucous, but inevitable sing-a-long that always accompanies it. However, there was still time for one more. Closing with ‘Knights of Cydonia’, the serial closing song, Muse ended with aplomb.



The entire show was a surreal experience, and as the band left the stage and the thousands of fans began to filter from the stadium, the whole performance still failed to register. In fact, Bellamy’s ability to do ridiculous things with the guitar, whilst also hitting every note with his falsetto voice, defies belief on its own. Not to mention the incredible stage - inspired by the dystopian themes of George Orwell’s novel, ‘1984’. It was a superb show, not perfect though, due to the inclusion of the weak Resistance tracks ‘Guiding Light’ and ‘Undisclosed Desires’. Yet, this was only a personal niggle. Muse might not be to everyone’s taste, but whether you’re a fan or not, it would take a very strong-minded person to debate the quality of the Muse live show. I am certainly not going to argue with their reputation, they haven’t won 12 live awards for nothing.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Like it :) Im jealous

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