Concert Review: Muse at The Final Four

This concert literally fell into my lap.  I’ve been in love with Muse since 2008 when I became somewhat obsessed with pseudo-rock star glory in the form of the video game Rock Band, and while looking for songs to download, stumbled upon Hysteria.  Since then, they have been on my bucket list, and I actually purchased tickets to a show in Indy two years ago before I had a major injury that required ankle surgery and prevented me from going.

Fast forward to 2013, where I had tickets to the final four to see some basketball games in Atlanta.  Imagine my excitement when I’m surfing the web on my phone while driving to Atlanta and I find out that one of the headliners for the weekend is Muse.  I was thrilled.

I have heard from multiple sources that Muse has an absolutely amazing show – several saying that it’s the best they’ve ever seen.  I’m ready Muse.  Blow my mind!

On the Saturday of the two final four games, I left a bar in Atlanta’s Brackettown after the first game just in time to sprint out to the outdoor venue, which was completely packed.  As I was weaving in out of the tens of thousands of people trying to get closer, the Muse show started, and before I knew what hit me, vocalist Matt Bellamy was hitting the insane falsetto chorus to Supremacy.  This show was on, and it was great from the very first note.

As the show went on and on, it just kept getting better.  Each song was was brilliantly executed in true Muse fashion, weaving a theatrical alt/prog/electronic rock masterpiece with really cool visual effects that made the show so good it impressed a big group of unruly group of basketball fans from Louisville, Syracuse, Wichita  and Michigan.  For the sake of attempting to keep my fan-boy rambling to a minimum, lets just go straight to some of the elements that made this show incredible.

• After being mesmerized by Supremacy, the second track was Madness, which is one of my favorite Muse songs off of all time, and another great track off of their most recent album (2nd Law).  The song featured bassist Christopher Wolstenholm playing a custom double-neck bass, the top half of which is a electronic MIDI controller to produce synth sounds (Google tells me this is a Misa Katara).  Definitely a first for me.
• Possibly the highlight of the show, due it being so unexpected, was how stand-out the song Panic Station was.  Putting the awesome visuals beside (more later), this song was incredibly fun, and the juxtaposition of the really cool guitar breakdown with the almost funk-style bass part was really cool.  Plus, the band just seemed like they were really enjoying playing it.  How could you not?
• The sixth song of the set was Hysteria, that kicks off with the mind-blowing bass solo and gives a perfect example of how this band is able to keep their music extremely interesting, regardless of the fact that they are only a three piece (and a sparingly featured touring keyboardist).  Definitely a highlight for me as this is one of my all time favorite songs – and to boot, they played a Back in Black outro to this song, which was really cool.
• After Hysteria, Bellamy hit the piano to play Survival, which was just another amazing song that was written for the 2012 Olympic Theme Song (in case you didnt’ know what a big deal Muse was…).  The song builds slow, with Bellamy eventually wailing “I’m GONNA WINNNN” as he jumps up with his guitar around his back and transitions the song from it’s slow intro into the big instrumental mid-section.  Epic.
• Next was Follow Me, which is one of their more chill songs.  As good as it sounded, the focal point of this song at this show was the fact that the entire sound system lost power halfway through and I had to listen to the Atlanta Braves “chop” chant for about 15 minutes.  Woof.  The crowd was bummed, but they announced shortly after this that it was a simple power failure and Muse would be back out shortly.
• Liquid State was a cool change of pace, as it features rapid pace guitar and bass parts, and is the only song I remember where bassist Wolstenholm is singing lead vocals. They also squeezed in the uber-famous Uprising and a personal favorite, Knights of Cydonia, before they ended this amazing set.
• The final highlight that I’ll mention was the completely mind-boggling theatrics and visuals throughout the entire show that elevated this from a talented group playing great music to a truly mind blowing hour and a half long experience.  I’ve watched the whole show live on Youtube several times since, and as cool as it looks in the video, it simply does not compare to being in that crowd.  It was just incredible.  Were talking wild visuals – Panic Station featured giant blue dancing monsters (see below), other songs had Matrix style visuals, giant dancing robots, and pretty much everything in between.  Totally wild atmosphere.  It was really cool.

Who would have thought that for an NCAA basketball junkie, with three brilliant games on final four weekend in 2013, one of the main things I would remember about the weekend was a concert.