[ATTENDED: April 7, 2019] Muse 
Three years ago (I can’t believe it was that long), I saw Muse at this very arena.
It was an incredible spectacle. And I knew that I would see them again if they came back.
And here they were.
The last tour was in support of their Drones album and it was a marvel of technological excess–drones floating all over the place and marvels of wirelessness.
They had said that this album and tour was meant to more humanizing. But that did not mean less spectacle!
The show focused on the new album but left plenty of room for older songs from throughout their career. The people in front of me were calling out for a particular song (which I think was fro their debut–an album they played nothing from). And I had to think–did they really imagine that Muse and their million dollar spectacle had any room for a request?
Because this is a finely tuned machine.
Last show, their stage was in the middle of the floor, so you could circle the band (I assume). This year I wanted a floor spot and I got one. But the stage was not in the round like last time. So I had to pick a side of the horseshoe shaped floor. I never really knew how the band set up ( I should have investigated), because I feel like I chose the worst spot to stand.
Not that the location was bad, exactly, just that if I wanted to see Matt Bellamy (which I did), I chose very poorly. Of course, if I wanted to see bassist Chris Wolstenholme (which I did), I was in the perfect spot. Because this was his stronghold. I assumed, however, that he and Bellamy would switch places a few times through the show. Wolstenholme did go to the other side a few times, but Bellamy only traveled to our side once and then at the end. I had gotten there pretty early so I was very close to the stage, but when Bellamy and the band went out on the catwalk to the middle of the floor, it was pretty far away and, weirdly, hardly anyone turned around to watch them. So I found myself facing other fans while trying to see what was going on.
But there was so much else going on, that that was okay too. It’s hard to even remember everything that happened in this show.
There were acrobats who came sliding down from the top of the stage set up. They were later dressed in leather and fired dry ice guns above the crowd. Later they were dressed as zombies and swarmed Bellamy when he was alone on the catwalk. There were men in full robotic suits.
There were men and women in full leather gear playing drums.
And there were lasers upon lasers.
Bellamy wore several jackets, one of which lit up in patterns as he moved (during “Algorithm”) He also wore glasses which lit up and did various sinewaves across the front.
And then there was the story. For this was all in aid of a plot. It was essentially about he mechanization of humanity (I think). For in the interstitial films, (while the band took a break or changed clothes) we saw what I believe was a person slowly get outfitted in mechanical parts.
None of this has much to do with the new album, and yet when packed in with all of their past songs, a kind of narrative emerged. But I’m not willing to get hung up on that. I’ll just talk about the lights.
And the music.
Bellamy sounded in great voice. And the band was as tight as ever. Bellamy played a lot less guitar on this tour–which seems such a surprise since he is an amazing guitarist. So, in some ways, it was good to be in front of Wolstenholme who played bass, keytar and his double neck midi-activated touch pad guitar thing–which is super cool.
Muse drummer Dominic Howard is also an amazing player. He doesn’t get to be as active as the other two, but he is essential.
There’s also a fourth member of the band, Morgan Nicholls, who gets no real recognition, but without whom, these songs would not work at all. He plays keys and guitars and adds so many sounds. And yet he’s mostly i the shadows back by Howard–at least they can hang out together.
They opened with the alternate reality version of new song “Algorithm.” And then followed it with “Pressure” both from the new album. For “Pressure” the leather clad militia came out wielding trombones to “play” the main riff (above).
Like last time, Wolstenholme’s bass was outfitted with lights along the fretboard, which seems so minor compared to the spectacle that followed, but it was still cool.
They played the “Drill Sargent” audio from Drones which led into “Psycho.” I thought it was a weird choice, but the whole show was militaristic, so I guess it makes sense. Then they were back to the new album with “Break It to Me.” This song has a wild guitar solo that I would have loved to see him better when he played it.
They made dips into all of their older albums (except the debut) but not in any order. They also playe a number of shows that were played last tour (which is to be expected). It is always fun to shout along to “Uprising,” which they changed a bit by adding a jamming outro. Nicholls played the high pitched guitar notes since Bellamy was guitar-free. Then it was on to one of my favorite new songs “Propaganda” (this is when the women with the dry ice cannons came out).
Last tour they didn’t go all the way back to Origin of Symmetry, so it was pretty cool to hear “Plug in Baby” (which sounded as fresh and poppy as some of the new songs–ignore that people say the new album is too poppy).
Up next was a brand new song that Bellamy composed for the Game of Thrones soundtrack. It’s called “Pray.” For this song, gigantic drums lifted up from under the stage and Howard and Wolstenholme thumped along while Bellamy sang some amazing high notes.
After the new song “The Dark Side,” Bellamy started playing the music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He played it on guitar and then the “stage” responded in kind. This led to an awesome “Supermassive Black Hole” (it’s fun to see Wolstenholme sing the backing vocals). At the end of this song they played a little jam of The Troggs’ “Wild Thing.” Last tour they had a number of little jams after the songs, but this time they kept them to a minimum (which was fine).
During “Thought Contagion” the dancers all came out dressed like zombies and attacked Bellamy out in the middle of the catwalk.
After “Interlude” they launched right into “Hysteria” and that amazing bassline–that was very cool to see Wolstenholme playing up close.
And then they blew my mind by doing the one song I was sure they would never play again: “The 2nd Law: Unsustainable.” This song is bizarre and crazy with all kind of sound effects and nonsense and I love it. I have listened to it over and over many times and to see them do it live was awesome.
There was a slight break and then the trio came to the catwalk to play the gospel version of “Dig Down.” Having the chorus of singers was pretty cool and it sounded amazing.
After an interstitial video, they came back with “Madness.” They played this last time, of course, but it was really cool to see Bellamy sing the chorus once, which then put it into Wolstenholme’s bass midi patch. So every time after that that you heard “m-m-m-m-madness” it was Bellamy’s voice played on the bass midi pad on Wolstenholme’s Status Kitara Doubleneck Bass.
“Mercy” sounded amazing as always. Bellamy’s voice is really spectacular. And when they set off the confetti cannons, it’s pretty exciting. I was about ten feet from the cannon, but I did not get all that overwhelmed with confetti–it seemed to mostly go out further than us (although we certainly got our share). Not that the confetti cannon was shabby or anything, but nothing compares to The Flaming Lips excessive use of confetti cannons.
“Time is Running Out” once again impressed me with how good it sounds given that it’s mostly drum and bass. But what a bass line!
Then they played what has become known as the “Houston Jam” (since that’s where the first show was). It is a little disappointing to realize that every show is pretty much exactly the same even the “improv” sections, but it’s hard to see how it couldn’t be with this kind of production. What would happen in a club tour?
The “Houston Jam” led to “Take A Bow.” During this song Bellamy came rising up from under the stage and sang it to a metallic skull. It was very Macbeth and a little silly, but it was still pretty cool (especially when the screen showed the skull flaming).
“Prelude” (which introduced Bellamy’s led jacket) led to “Starlight” (as it did last time). Before it started the dancers marched out around the crowd with bundles of balloons. It’s funny how something so low tech never fails to make people happy.
And this led to the encore. When the band does all of these little movies it’s not always clear what constitutes an encore.
A video game machine came up on stage and guys in oversized robots costumes were on either side of the stage. I had heard that there were giant mechanoids, and I assumed that this is what they had been talking about. I actually assumed that Bellamy was in one, but he wasn’t, he was playing the piano at the end of the catwalk. They played “Algorithm” again, although a different version than the opening song. The dancers also came out with what looked like fluorescent light tubes (I hope they were sturdier than that) and proceeded to do a kind of ninja/dance routine with them.
Then came a ripping medley of older songs. usually a sign of an encore, right? But the real clue was probably the giant robot came out from behind the stage and looked to be attacking the band. I have never seen anything quite like it (there’s a couple of pictures below the setlist).
I don’t know how anyone was paying attention to “Stockholm Syndrome” at that point, what with the robotic arm seeming to be very close to Bellamy. It briefly segued into the insane riff of “Assassin” before jumping to the insane riff of “Reapers.” They played some of “Reapers” before switching over to “The Handler.” which made perfect sense given the theme
You were my oppressor
And I, I have been programmed to obey
But now, you are my handler
And I, I will execute your demands
Just to make everyone super psyched, they played one more song from Origin of Symmetry. It was snippet of “Newborn.” They returned to the cool solo and final verse of before thrashing through the opening of Deftones’ ‘Headup’ riff.
Things quieted down as Wolstenholme went to the end of the catwalk to play Ennio Morricone’s “Man with a Harmonica.” Like last show he threw two harmonicas into the crowd as he finished each section. I was in very much the wrong place for that.
But that can only mean one thing–the roaring ending of “Knights of Cydonia.”
During one of the songs, the video cameras showed Bellamy run off the stage and through the cordoned-off section high-fiving everyone who was close. Once again, I was completely in the wrong spot for that
But those are minor and rather foolish complaints because the show was amazing and I shall not complain about being that close to such an amazing band.
They seem to put out a record every three years or so. Come 2022 I’ll be waiting for them once again. This time, I’ll choose the left side of the stage.
| 1/31/2016 | 4/7/2019 |
| “Drones” recording / Psycho ψ | Algorithm (alternate reality version) § |
| Dead Inside ψ | Pressure § |
| Interlude ∀ | “Drill Sergeant” recording ψ |
| Hysteria ∀ (Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker’ riff + AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’ riff outro) | Psycho ψ |
| Map of the Problematique ♦ (‘Who Knows Who’ riff outro) | Break It to Me § |
| “The 2nd Law: Isolated System” ‰ | Uprising (extended outro) ⇔ |
| The Handler ψ | Propaganda § |
| Supermassive Black Hole ♦ (The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘Voodoo Child’ intro) | Plug in Baby ⊕ |
| Prelude ‰ | Pray (High Valyrian) [Matthew Bellamy song, shortened] ♠ |
| Starlight ♦ | The Dark Side § |
| Apocalypse Please ∀ | Supermassive Black Hole ♦ (‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ intro; The Troggs’ ‘Wild Thing’ outro) |
| Munich Jam ξ | Thought Contagion § |
| Madness ‰ | Interlude ∀ |
| Resistance ⇔ | Hysteria ∀ |
| “JFK” | The 2nd Law: Unsustainable ‰ |
| Reapers ψ (Song requested by child from Children’s Wish Foundation, meeting the band and attending the concert) | Dig Down (acoustic gospel version) § |
| Time is Running Out ∀ | “STT Interstitial 1” |
| Uprising ⇔ | Madness ‰ |
| The Globalist ψ | Mercy ψ |
| “Drones” (reprise) ψ | Time is Running Out ∀ |
| encore | Houston Jam ξ |
| Mercy ψ | Take a Bow ♦ |
| Man with a Harmonica | Prelude ‰ |
| Knights of Cydonia ♦ | Starlight ♦ |
| encore | |
| “STT Interstitial 2” | |
| Algorithm § | |
| Stockholm Syndrome ∀ / Assassin ♦ / Reapers ψ / The Handler ψ / New Born ⊕ (Deftones’ ‘Headup’ riff outro) | |
| Man with a Harmonica | |
| Knights of Cydonia ♦ |
⊕ Origin of Symmetry 2001
∀ Absolution 2003
♦ Black Holes and Revelations 2006
⇔ Resistance 2009
‰ The Second Law 2012
ψ Drones 2015
§ Simulation Theory 2019
♠ Game of Thrones soundtrack 2019
ξ improvisation
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