The Aftermath

This time last week I had just returned from Muse's first night residency (I started writing this last Saturday before you say anything smart ok?) at a Wembley stadium still shiny enough to justify being called the 'New' Wembley Stadium, still shell-shocked from the enormity of the venue and the music itself. Muse as you probably already know delivered a typically brilliant performance, never being the chattiest of groups they stormed through their two hour set with great gusto and little time for niceties.

Anyway lets start at the beginning where most stories begin, our prize for queing through several showers for several hours was a place in the 'Golden Circle' which was disappointingly not Golden. A Golden circle is a special area at the front for a limited number of people, to prevent too much crushing, the same kind that totally killed the atmosphere at Live 8. With our front row seats secured we endured one last torrent before the skies cleared in time for Mexican duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela who had obviously brought some sun with them. Their set whilst initially impressive dragged on a bit as their album tracks do sound a bit sameish but a cover of Stairway to Heaven was warmly received. Half the fun with these two is simply watching them play, the speed in which their fingers dance across the frets is amazing, Metal'esque shredding on acoustic strings is something that must take a lot of blood, sweat and tears to achieve. Acknowledging this the audience warmly applauded them off. A rapidly drying Wembley had a smile on its face. A good start.

Dirty Pretty Things, probably the second most anticipated group on the line-up, completely misfired. Whether their awful sound is down to the quality of their musicianship or sound problems (there was a lot of smoke coming out of one of the amps, not a good sign) we'll never know, or indeed care. Neither did they appear to at the time looking rather apathetic and uninterested in the whole affair, apart from the drummer who seemed a decent bloke. They played Bang Bang You're Dead, got a few bottles thrown at them, threw a few back, gave someone in the crowd a trumpet and thankfully left the stage. The less said the better.

I should also mention Zane Lowe was doing an ok job keeping the audience mildly interested in-between sets, although he really should have done some more research on the demographics of his audience as he belted through dance numbers.

The Streets had been booed every time their name was mentioned in the build up to their performance, they had a tough job ahead of them in securing the support of the increasingly filled Wembley Stadium. And they did with 'Frank Skinner' as one person behind me called him, hopefully jokingly, proving that the audience doesn’t have to love your music to love you. The majority of their songs washed over me and most of the audience but Mike's masterful working of the crowd throwing in Queen references and constantly reminding the audience of Muse's impending arrival throwing in the lyrics to 'Time is Running Out' amongst other ploys to earn our trust and support. The best support of the evening, although I wouldn't pay to see them or any of the supports for that matter.

This time Zane Lowe did not appear to fill the silence, and the crowd was left to stew waiting in quite anticipation of Muse's arrival..

Emerging unexpectedly from the centre of the stadium amidst a explosion of confetti and smoke, which left us in the crowded 'Golden Circle' utterly confused but excited certain that something was going on even though we could not see it. They strode down through the crowd nervously with Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights (you know the music from the apprentice…yea that one) playing providing a suitably dramatic, overblown entrance for a band know for its supermassiveness.

After a tense wait, in which the band armed themselves with their instruments, they stormed into Knights of Cydonia, which if I’m honest was a bit disappointing, the performance itself was greet the crowd went wild but Take a Bow is such a better opener, however what’s done is done and Muse were away. As had happened 7 months earlier a few metres away in Wembley Arena they began with a devastatingly uptempo start to their set list. KOC, Hysteria and Supermassive Black Hole soon separated the men from the boys and many of the smaller, weaker Muse fans had been filtered to the back, I had again been separated from my friends and my jeans were slowly falling down, my earlier decision to not wear a belt for comfort reasons turned out to be the wrong one. (Apologies to anyone standing around the afro’d guy in the jeans near the front of the right hand side golden circle, I really didn’t want to be jumping in my boxers)

City of Delusion gave me a small respite for me to secure them more firmly around myself , however this was immediately followed by Butterflies and Hurricanes and Muse's magnum opus Citizen Erased both of which were performed brilliantly, brilliantly enough to make my jeans fall once again. Matt performed a brilliant solo at the end of CE must akin to his one off the Hullabaloo CD which despite its length is a brilliantly intense solo, one of my favourites. As the song climaxed with its beautifully calm finish with Matt sat looking quite overwhelmed on his piano it was clear this would be a memorable night.

However there had yet to be any great surprises in Muse's setlist, it was pretty much their greatest hits and material off BHAR. This changed after Hoodoo, which once again stands out live for some reason as the studio version is quite forgettable. Dom , wearing retina burning lime green trousers dropped a frankly disgusting puntastic introduction to their next song; "How you all doing out there? We hope your Feeling Good" Lost on most in the crowd at the time, much like his introduction of Supermassive Black hole being for “all you R’n’B fans out there” being greeted with boos by the same audience that had proven themselves quite elitist in their tastes outside of Muse. The admittedly poor gag became apparent as the opening notes of Muse's cover of the classic Feeling Good rang out, which was accompanied by a rather sexy video in the background (I like to notice this things rather than things about the actual performers you’ll soon notice) This was followed by another welcome surprise in the shape of Sunburn, unfortunately the only song off Showbiz they would be playing. The performance continued on with the usual Muse staples and some less popular stuff off of BHAR. It would not be until the first of two encores that Muse truly stole the show.

Blackout an album track of off Absolution would serve to be the unlikely hero of the night, not because its a great song, which I’ve since realised it is, not because of the thousands of lights shimmering out of the darkness that created a mini galaxy inside Wembley at Matt's request. None of these things compared to the spectacle of two acrobats flying at what seemed like a few feet above us on huge balloons which we presumed would be for us to play with during Bliss. As they floated gracefully above the crowd against a backdrop of lights and camera flashes beaming out of the darkness it was clear that Muse really had provided something special, something that went beyond playing Citizen Erased or simply having big satellite dishes on stage, they had provided a awe inspiring spectacle that was good enough to draw 100,000 pairs of eyes away from the band itself. As the song drew to a close with one of Matt's many Manson’s shimmering to a crescendo I noticed a woman behind me wipe a tear from her eye, I might have done the same if I wasn’t so devastatingly masculine and immune to these things.

However this wasn’t a MCR gig, (That rain would fall on tomorrows parade) Muse immediately set about getting the crowd geared up for the final finale as Matt fiddled around with his fuzz factory, us true Muse fans, all knew what was coming, the night had been so goon thus far we had almost forgotten it, but now it was coming a song I had myself grappled with for so many months in my bedroom was now gonna be showcased in its full glory. As the opening riff rose and fell, 100'000 Muse fans wiped the tears from their eyes (well something like that, I have a tendency to exaggerate) and started jumping in unison to Muse's breakthrough hit Plug in Baby. As if the night could not get any better, Matt went walkabout during the closing riff of the song, he may not be the most traditionally charismatic frontman, he rarely speaks to the audience and when he does his speech is nervously rushed and muttered, leading to the unusual arrangement of the drummer providing the banter imbeteewn songs. But he sure knows how to move with that guitar, its something you appreciate more as a musician (that’s what I am <.<) how hard it is not only to play the songs, but to throw your body and guitar about whilst you do it, this was something I fully appreciated as he stood what must of been metres away from me and the rest of the idiots that had stood for hours to earn a place near the front, it made the slight dehydration, jean malfunctions and general pain worthile as he bounced around in the midst of the crowd before returning to the stage and disappearing with the rest of the band once again. Usually you only get one Encore at gigs, but this was Muse, this was Wembley, this was special. They hadn't played Stockholm Syndrome or Bliss yet!

Unlike the first encore, there was a sense of unease and dare I say it thoughts of "Is that it?" Even people in the seats started to filter out, we begun to grow uneasy and begun shouting out "We want Muse! We want Muse!" And so they returned obviously because we had cried out for it so much, not because Encore’s are not prearranged pointless gestures these days, for a few more songs, one of them, we knew would be Take a Bow, one of them must be Stockholm Syndrome and the other would probably be Bliss. Muse had other ideas, and mixed things up a bit with one of their lesser known hits, Micro Cuts. Thankfully for the first and last time that night the crowd did not attempt to sing, partly down to exhaustion, but mostly down to self respect and our deep manly broken voices that had struggled to reach the peaks of Knights of Cydonia and Citizen Erased, leaving the extreme, indecipherable falsetto of Micro Cuts out of reach. It was a welcome surprise, and we dutifully jumped to the chorus, I was never a huge fan of Bliss anyway.

More predictably Stockholm Syndrome follows up and the crowd once again dutifully returns to singing duties, its worth pointing out now that I couldn’t actually hear Muse for most of the gig just dozens of teenage boys around me singing "THIS ISSSSSSS THE LAASST TIMEEE ILLLLL ABANDOONNN YOOUU!!!!!1" But it was a laugh nonetheless, I engaged in a bit of gentle moshing, a pleasure I hadn’t engaged in at Wembley Arena, but I was bigger stronger now, ready to play with the big boys, to assert my masculinity I knocked one guy to the grown, apologised and lifted him up. As most of the crowd let loose, it was clear this was the true finale, crowd surfers emerged out of all directions perhaps less in a anarchic rock and roll fashion but more to beat the imminent rush for the exits and catch the 11.05 back to Norwich the securities no nonsense policy to such deviants ensured they would get that cosy window seat. Stockholm climaxed with the achingly familiar 'improvisation' made famous 3 years ago at Glastonbury, if its not broke don’t fix it I guess but it is a problem I have with Muse, surely they have the musical ability to improvise properly a bit more. Take a Bow closed the set, perhaps for little more reason than allowing Matt to literally take a bow (lolz), its not as good a closer as Knights, or Stockholm or even Plug in Baby. But it would do, Muse finished the set and disappeared behind a wall of flames (well not quite literally as dramatic as that, but there was fire..and Muse) And it was done, back to reality, perhaps not quite the religious, generation defining show I expected It was...great but Stockholm Syndrome ,Blackout and maybe Citizen Erased served as the only truly jaw dropping pieces of the set.

The stadium lights bolted on blinding permanently many who had already been injured during the pyrotechnics and Sinatras come fly with me echoed through the stadiums dodgy acoustics and I now had the relatively mundane task of finding the £18 t shirt I had lost half way through the show and finding my friends. To add some factual accuracy to this massively overexaggerated piece here’s the setlist that ACTUALLY DID HAPPEN! Its on the NME check it out for yourselves, when did they ever exaggerate or lie about something?

'Knights Of Cydonia'
'Hysteria'
'Supermassive Blackhole'
'Map Of The Problematique'
'City Of Delusion'
'Butterflies & Hurricanes'
'Citizen Erased'
'Hoodoo'
'Feeling Good'
'Sunburn'
'Invincible'
'Starlight'
'Man Of Mystery'
'Time Is Running Out'
'Newborn'
'Soldiers Poem'
'Unintended'
'Blackout'
'Plug In Baby'
'Micro Cuts'
'Stockholm Syndrome'
'Take A Bow'(Shit)