CityLife

Muse

Muse

Muse
Lancashire County Cricket Club
September 4, 2010

Teignmouth trio Muse have travelled a long way from their early days as a band written off as Radiohead mimics.

They persevered, adding rich new layers to their sound, creating a mix of angular garage pop and face melting prog rock, all with a classical and operatic grandeur.

Tonight’s 21 track salute to an ever-more impressive back catalogue starts big with the spooky synthesised Uprising before launching into the industrial rock of Supermassive Black Hole.

Much of the next two hours is taken from their brilliant last three LPs with nostalgic nods to older but still relevant songs like fan favourite New Born.

Hysteria, United States Of Eurasia and Starlight are huge winners, as is the formidable piece of energetic rock that is Time Is Running Out.

Amid the visual onslaught Muse always look like they are having a great time, Bellamy wandering into every corner of the massive stage, relishing his rock posturing, while Chris Wolstenholme and Dom Howard thump the bass and drums as if it were their last ever gig.

Muse pride themselves on giving fans a mind-blowing and theatrical show, which could prove relentless and tiring, such is the assault on your senses, the timely Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1, which take things down a level before one final barrage starting with the unapologetic power pop of Plug In Baby and finally the epic, rip roaring rock opera Knights Of Cydonia.

If there is one word to describe Muse it’s grandiose.

Tonight we get the whole package – a lavish, and I mean unbelievably lavish, stage comprising of a dominating Orwellian governmental structure straight out of the pages of 1984, a circular platform which rises up and out into the crowd like a UFO, a lighting show which must’ve put the National Grid on its knees, and rock so vociferous, so volcanic, ears will be ringing for a very, very long time.

It really is impossible to find a fault with this type of performance, other than wishing it had gone on for longer.

Muse showed why they have been consistently a level higher than any other British rock band in the past six years.

They have style, substance, songs, and the right amount of self-belief to want to strive to keep getting better. Phenomenal.