I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: July 23, 2026] Muse

I can’t believe that it has been seven years since I’ve seen Muse.  Mostly because I remember their two shows (the earlier one was ten years ago) so vividly because they were fantastic.

I blew off their last tour to the States in 2023 because the tickets were so expensive.  Then I read a review and realized that the price was worth it for the show.  This time around the tickets were once again WAY too expensive, but they were at the PNC Bank Arts Center.  Where you can get lawn seats for around $40.  And, if the pavilion seats aren’t sold out, you can upgrade for $25.  And that’s what my son and I did.  We got Row Q which was the best location I’ve had for a Muse show.  And holy cow was it amazing to see them so close.

I realize that I haven’t enjoyed Muse’s newer stuff as much as their older stuff (I know everyone says that) but it doesn’t mean I think the new stuff is bad.  I just need to listen more, I think.  But new music mostly means a new tour and new technology for them to play around with.  And that’s pretty awesome.

When I saw them last time, it involved gigantic creatures all around the stage.  This show was slightly more subdued, but no less technologically marvelous.  Although at the start, the stage was remarkably minimalist.  One amp behind Matt Bellamy–I assume it was not plugged in and was just a prop).  Dominic Howard on drums on a riser in the middle (later, the amp was replaced with a small standing kit that he used for a song or two while they were no doubt doing something interesting to his main kit.  In the back right was touring musician Dan Lancaster who plays keys and guitar and other things.  And then there was bassist Chris Wolstenholme with his red-light-on-frets bass guitar.  He and Bellamy walk all over the stage, untethered to anything.

I assumed that they would be playing most of the new album and would certainly start with a new song.  But, instead, after a Chvrches song played over the speakers, they came out (to thunderous applause) and launched into Interlude.  Which is an amusing title to star a show with but it segued into the outstanding Hysteria which go the crowd totally rowdy.

They followed it with the cool riffage of Cryogen, the first new song of the night and one that fit in perfectly.  But it wasn’t going to be all new songs, not at all.  Because up next was Supermassive Black Hole.  From what I understand, it’s their biggest hit.  I enjoyed my son’s expression when he watched Wolstenholme whisper/yell the title line.  This was the only song where Bellamy used his guitar with a MIDI pad on the bottom.  The first time I saw them, he used it a lot.  It’s basically got a pad where he can manipulate the guitar sound in a bunch of different ways.  It’s very cool to see live and I would have loved to see it again.

The band had a couple of cameramen on stage for the whole show. They were running around to each of the guys and showing them close up from time to time.  A very funny moment was when they projected scenes from the show o the screen and the timestamp said Aug 15 1977.

The new Hexagons gave Bellamy a chance to show off his guitar skills with the soloing opening.  Then they jumped to Simulation Theory’s Thought Contagion.  I didn’t go to the tour for this album and I regret it, but it was fun hearing this live (especially since this was the first song to use fire!).  They returned to the new album with an extended intro for Unravelling and I totally realized that even if I didn’t know the new songs that well (or not at all in this case) I love Bellamy’s songwriting–deep riffs and soaring choruses.  What’s not to like?  It was followed by the remix style of Man of the People’s Kill or Be Killed.  I hadn’t heard this remix.  It was a weird setup because Matt’s voice was on tape and his face appeared in all of the floating cubes–but they were distorted and weird.  Chris and Dom did play live.  I wonder what matt was doing all that time.

For all of Muse’s anti-authoritarian attitudes and we-will-not-be-destroyed intensity, there’s an occasional love song.  On the new album, it’s Be With You.  For this song, they turned the stage red and it looked like a church.  The song builds slowly adding more instruments and then, much to our delight and surprise, midway through the song there was an explosion of confetti followed by an explosions of streamers.  Because we were so close to the machines, everyone in our row was just covered in paper.  I looked over at my son and we both laughed as we were covered in red and pink and purple streamers–so glad we weren’t on the lawn.

This pretty song was followed by one of their darker songs, Psycho, which brough the house down.

When the song Madness came out, I know a lot of people didn’t like it–so poppy–but man is it fun to see live (and I love the end of the song).  This version was especially fun because Matt encouraged us to sing along and on the second go round, someone of the front row did something to make him laugh–I feel like he never breaks character so that was neat.  I also realized that this song was the one where Chris plays his double neck bass guitar.  The difference is the top neck has a MIDI pad and he was making the synthy “muh muh muh” sounds from his bass.  Such neat tech these guys have!

They followed this with a killer version of Plug in Baby, which I leaned is my sons’ favorite Muse song–once again, the crowd sang along very well.

After an instrumental that I assumed was an intro to the next song (it was actually Hanging in Victory Square, (apparently only the second half) which comes from the audio book of Orwell’s 1984), they segued into Time is Running Out, with even more audience sing along–because how could you not sing along?

They played the JFK voice over which was followed by the inspirational Uprising–and damn right we sang along to that one, too.

This was followed by Chris walking to the front of the stage and paying the harmonica.  I loved this when I saw it the first time and I was pretty psyched to see it again. Not only because it’s cool to watch him toss the harmonica to a fan in the front row but also because it means its the intro to the killerest Muse song ever: Knights of Cydonia.  I loved watching Matt playing this song because I never realized that in the opening notes, he’s playing the riff and using the whammy bar for every note–so much fun to watch.  And then of course, the intensity of the singalong and the headbanging ending  Awesome.  And even more awesome with a roomful of people singing along.

How do you follow that? By changing direction entirely.  Everyone left the stage except Dom who played varying drum parts while Dan Lancaster played the music for The 2nd Law: Isolated System (his remix version).  It was cool to give the drummer a spotlight while he played the electronic and analog drums.

While that was going on, Matt was changing into a new outfit–his leather jacket with all the light up panels.  I had seen him wear this before–maybe it was updated for this tour.  He started dancing as the disco beat of Nightshift Superstar played. If people didn’t like Madness, they probably hate this one.  It’s the most disco sounding song that Muse has ever done.  But at the same time it has one of the most badass bass riffs that Chris has played and it was great to see him play it live.

This section remained synthy with the cool instrumental intro to Algorithm which segued into Undisclosed Desires another poppy newer song.  This one ended with Matt playing a lengthy piano outro (say it again–dude is super talented).  The outro turned into the piano intro “Prelude” from The 2nd Law.  But instead of seguing into the bouncy Survival, it turned into the outrageously catchy Starlight.  It opened with Matt’s piano and he then led us in a clap-along to the fun 1-2-1-3 drum rhythm.  Everyone sang along to this fun song as well.  And that’s when they set off the second explosion of streamers–blue this time.  We were simply covered in paper by the end of the show.

They left for an encore and who knew what they were going to play next.  The opening synth arpeggio started and I recognized it but couldn’t tell you the name of the song (even after it was over I didn’t know the name because I’m terrible with names).  But Matt was wearing glasses that spelled out words.  And he was on the big screen where we could see the words as he sang BURN YOU WILL BURN IN HELL.  The song is Take a Bow–not one I thought of as a show ender but holy cow.  The song builds and builds to a massive climax and that was that.

It was a truly unforgettable show.  True, it wasn’t as spectacular as the others, but it was still a wonderful spectacle.  And I’m so glad my son was there to see it with me.  I’m sure he won’t forget it anytime soon.

 

1/31/2016 PNC Bank Arts Center	1/31/2016 Wells Fargo Center	4/7/2019 Wells Fargo Center
Clearest Blue [Churches song] [TAPE]	“Drones” recording / Psycho ψ	Algorithm (alternate reality version) §
Interlude ∀	Dead Inside ψ	Pressure §
Hysteria  ∀	Interlude ∀	“Drill Sergeant” recording ψ
Cryogen ∇	Hysteria  ∀ (Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker’ riff + AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’ riff outro)	Psycho ψ
Supermassive Black Hole ♦ {extended intro}	Map of the Problematique ♦ (‘Who Knows Who’ riff outro)	Break It to Me §
Hexagons ∇	“The 2nd Law: Isolated System” ‰	Uprising (extended outro) ⇔
Thought Contagion §	The Handler ψ	Propaganda §
Unravelling ∇ (extended intro)	Supermassive Black Hole ♦ (The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘Voodoo Child’ intro)	Plug in Baby ⊕
Kill or Be Killed Θ (Felsmann + Tiley reinterpretation; shortened; Matt vocals on tape; Chris and Dom on bass and drums)	Prelude ‰	Pray (High Valyrian) [Matthew Bellamy song, shortened] ♠
Be With You ∇	Starlight ♦	The Dark Side §
[Drill Sergeant] (The Wow! Signal Tour version) [TAPE]	Apocalypse Please ∀	Supermassive Black Hole ♦ (‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ intro; The Troggs’ ‘Wild Thing’ outro)
Psycho ψ	Munich Jam ξ	Thought Contagion §
Madness ‰	Madness ‰	Interlude ∀
Plug in Baby ⊕	Resistance ⇔	Hysteria ∀
Hanging in Victory Square ∞ (Ilan Eshkeri & Matt Bellamy cover) (second half only)	“JFK”	The 2nd Law: Unsustainable ‰
Time is Running Out ∀	Reapers ψ (Song requested by child from Children’s Wish Foundation, meeting the band and attending the concert)	Dig Down (acoustic gospel version) §
“JFK” [TAPE]	Time is Running Out ∀	“STT Interstitial 1”
Uprising ⇔	Uprising ⇔	Madness ‰
Man with a Harmonica (Ennio Morricone cover)	The Globalist ψ	Mercy ψ
Knights of Cydonia ♦	“Drones” (reprise) ψ	Time is Running Out ∀
The 2nd Law: Isolated System ‰ (Dan Lancaster Remix)	encore	Houston Jam ξ
Nightshift Superstar ∇  (string outro)	Mercy ψ	Take a Bow ♦
Algorithm § (instrumental intro only)	Man with a Harmonica (Ennio Morricone cover)	Prelude ‰
Undisclosed Desires ⇔ (piano outro)	Knights of Cydonia ♦	Starlight ♦
Prelude ‰		encore
Starlight ♦		“STT Interstitial 2”
encore		Algorithm §
Take a Bow ♦		Stockholm Syndrome ∀ / Assassin ♦ / Reapers ψ / The Handler ψ / New Born ⊕ (Deftones’ ‘Headup’ riff outro)
		Man with a Harmonica (Ennio Morricone cover)
		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)
Θ Will of the People (2022)
∞ 1984 Audible Audio book (2024)
∇ The Wow! Signal (2026)

ξ improvisation