(photo taken from Flickr)
I’m pretty sure we ordered tickets to see Muse about 8 months ago so it was a long wait to see them in Montreal. But the day was upon us and Etienne, Nadine, Nat, Mike and me hopped into the van and hit the road! We also met up with JF, Marie-Claude and Martin for the event.
We ended up missing the opening act of Dead Sarah but managed to waltz down onto the floor and find a nice open spot for us to sip back a few beers and not fret about the crowd bothering us. What can I say? I am an old man nowadays who has rocked his fair share in his life. I am not content to sip on my beer, hang out near the sound booth for some aural pleasure and enjoy the ride.
The concert was fantastic and Muse is definitely on their way to be considered amongst the best of the stadium show Gods. Their stage set up was interesting in that it had a giant LED pyramid structure that would descend from the rafters and move much like the U2360 setup in that it can separate or move up and down.
They started off with playing Supremacy which is a great opening song…putting me into a James Bond movie! I’m not sure how Matt Belamy is able to sing the first song like he does so I have a theory that he must practice singing for about two hours before to get his voice in shape!
The entire night was mesmerizing. They know how to get the people moving and it was a non-stop roller coaster of impressive musical prowess. I was so impressed that I think I will drag Vero to the next show that I can, even though she doesn’t really follow them.
The 2nd Law tour rivals the stage setups of U2 and I would have to say that the year 2013 belongs to Muse.
Random thoughts:
– We missed quite a few songs as there was this killer lineup for beer. It was a slower part of the setlist but was disappointed to have missed a few tunes. I’ll have to check them out on Youtube. All I know is that I came out and there was freaking lazer beams going on! Nat said it was like that for four songs!
– When I was getting a beer, Mike grabbed his and he said he would hang out. I told him he didn’t have to and he should go watch the show. He stuck around until a song came on that he really enjoyed so he left. The guy behind me says “Dude. I can’t believe your friend left you. He failed the friendship test.” I had a good laugh so I yelled over to Mike as he was walking away “I can’t believe you left me!” However, when I was leaving with my beer the guy tells me “You also failed the friendship test. You’re only bringing back three beer to your friends when there is room for four.” I had a good chuckle.
– LEDs on a bass guitar? Sign me up!
– I kind of think Muse are actually aliens from another planet and that their stage will become a UFO at the end of the tour. There’s no way three guys can sound that good on stage.
Here’s a video I found of the first three songs… demonstrates the excellent stage setup. I appreciate stage design and I thought it was great that they angled the video screens upwards to the people up in the nosebleed sections.
Setlist:
The 2nd Law: Isolated System
Supremacy
Map of the Problematique (Who Knows Who outro)
Supermassive Black Hole
Resistance
Panic Station
Knights of Cydonia (Man with Harmonica intro)
(drummer solo)
Explorers
Follow Me
United States of Eurasia
Liquid State (damn it I missed this one)
Madness
Time is Running Out (House of the Rising Sun intro…which was funny because I was singing it in English not realizing that everyone else was singing a French version! Never knew!)
Undisclosed Desires
Stockholm Syndrome (RATM Freedom outro)
The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
Uprising
Encore:
Starlight
Survival
Too bad I didn’t get to hear my favourite track from The 2nd Law (Animals) but considering the show was spectacular, I can’t complain too much!