Muse live at Lisbon
So last weekend I went to Portugal, and while I was there I went to see Muse in Lisbon. My dad is the ultimate Muse fanboy but I was one of those unconvinced types. The only time in my life that I was ever more than indifferent about them was when I was about 13 and Kerrang! told me to like them, so I got Origin of Symmetry for Christmas and listened to Plug in Baby a few times. Apart from that, the only Muse song that’d ever hit me in the face was Supermassive Black Hole, which I acknowledged was a top tune because of its grimy intro. Oof.
Walking past the venue during the day, I was struck by the amount of people who had camped out in tents to see them. Pretty weird to think that three boys from Devon could have such an effect on the world. Next thing I noticed was that they had seven tour buses and ten stage trucks. Truly alarming.
But anyway, once I got into the venue, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Biffy Clyro were support for the night, and they put on a pretty good show. Once they’d finished, the crowd got a little bit overexcited and started doing Mexican waves. Entertaining for the first three times, slightly tiring for the next ten. And then the lights went down and what looked like three plain murals during Biffy’s set turned into screens with red graphics flashing on them. There were silhouettes marching up some stairs, and the suspense built until one of them fell down. And as the body fell, the screens separated and boom! they turned into blocks and each member of Muse was elevated on a podium. Pretty hard to describe but here is another shoddy homemade video to give you an idea:
They began with their most recent single, The Uprising. Having avoided listening to their new album The Resistance, I was unaware of how epic this song really is. It works fantastically live and they succeeded in rendering me utterly speechless for the whole set. Honestly the very best stage show I have ever seen. The lighting, sound and show in general, including rotating drumkit, was truly spectacular. So I guess it taught never to be a musical snob, because I was well and truly proved wrong. Here’s another video to show off just how good that stage show was:
Incredible.
