The last time I saw Muse was at Glastonbury 2000 on the Other Stage. Back then, their first album had only been out a few months and they were on before The Beta Band on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It was obvious watching them ten years ago that they had something pretty special going on and I can remember being distinctly envious of Matt Bellamy's guitar skills and thinking that they had a huge sound for a three piece. Now they are on their way to becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, the 20,000 capacity Pepsi Centre (home of the Denver Nuggets basketball team) was almost full. They had been booked to play another much smaller venue back in April but had cancelled due to being stuck in snow on their way, it is testament to their growing Stateside fanbase that just a few months later they were playing a venue three times the size. I suspect that this is in large part due to their inclusion in several Twilight film soundtracks judging by the presence of several teeny-boppers at the venue.
Support was from Passion Pit. Luckily I arrived at the venue halfway through their set so didn't have to endure too much of it. It nearly made me pass out in horror.
Anyway the lights went down and Muse descended onto the stage on three giant columns as "Exogenesis Part 1 (Overture)" blared out of the PA. This was quite an entrance and they immediately followed this with "Map of the Problematique" from their "Black Holes and Revelations" album (their most consistent piece of work in my opinion). So far, so good and things got even better as the opening chords to the epic "Knights of Cydonia" rang out, you could tell that the audience were not expecting them to drop this into the set three songs in and everyone reacted accordingly, banging their heads for the exhilarating final section of the song. This song showed the band at their best, most ridiculous and most fun. The Doctor Who meets Blondie glam rock of "Uprising" had the audience pumping their fists and singing along and "United States of Eurasia" took their sound almost to the point of parody, the more Queen than Queen chorus left me hoping that they can reign it in a bit for the next album.
As the show progessed I realised that despite their impeccable musicanship and obvious commitment to the songs there was little interaction with the audience. I was often reminded that I was watching a rock "show", the bombardment of projections and the rising and descending columns often made it feel like some sort of conspiracy theory/science fiction extravanganza and that the band themselves were very much blended into this. This was a double edged sword, on one hand I felt like I was watching something very unique, memorable and in some ways abstract but also sometimes I was a little detached from what was going on. Still I suppose that there was little doubt that a rock show was what the audience were here for and Muse do deliver the goods - you can't deny the power of some of the guitar riffs on songs such as the Sabbath-like "Unnatural Selection". In fact it was this last section of the show that I enjoyed the most with "Plug in Baby" followed by "Stockholm Syndrome", it started to feel almost like a metal show with tons of crazy riffing between songs and I noticed that the aforementioned teeny-boppers were starting to look a bit confused and disappointed as they realised that the Twilight songs probably weren't going to get an airing that night.
"Take a Bow" was the final song of the evening and with that the band (all except touring keyboard player Morgan Nicholls, who was onstage throughout the gig, but pretty much in the shadows) got back on their respective columns and ascended towards the rafters. Overall the concert was very enjoyable, Muse are a fantastic live band and they put on an incredible show but as is the trouble with lots of big rock shows there was a distinct lack of intimacy. Still, as an Englishman now living in the USA, I can't help but feel a little swell of pride that a band from Teignmouth, Devon are doing so well over here.
Setlist:
1 Exogenesis: Symphony, Part 1: Overture
2. Map of the Problematique
3. Knights of Cydonia
4. Uprising
5. Supermassive Black Hole
6. Hysteria (Star-Spangled Banner + Interlude intro + Back In Black outro)
7. Nishe
8. United States of Eurasia
9. Feeling Good
10. MK Jam
11. Undisclosed Desires
12. The Resistance
13. Starlight (+riff)
14. Time is Running Out (House of the Rising Sun intro)
15. Unnatural Selection
Encore 1:
16. Plug in Baby
17. Stockholm Syndrome (Agitated riff intro + War Within a Breath riff)
Encore2:
18. Take a Bow
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