It’s time we saw a miracle/it’s time for something biblical’ – he might look like a Sid Vicious upstart, but when Matt Bellamy said he was hell-bent on creating the ultimate live spectacle, he wasn’t fucking joking. Trying to create a palpable sense of apocalypse and desperation is no mean feat, yet Muse have outdone themselves, effectively appropriating the epic artistic vision of bands like Queen and The Who and filmmakers like Kubrick and Spielberg, and regurgitating it with a set of gleaming new gadgets, and a touch more Andrew Lloyd Webber.
The fact that such a gargantuan and grandiose sound was created by three guys with 10 visible guitar strings (and a few samplers), and that they can keep up this breakneck momentum without some kind of dementia setting in was a mystery of almost biblical proportions. The result is a howling rock opera - a terrifying, confusing, nauseating, emancipating and exhilarating trip through the far reaches of the universe. How the hell any of us were expected to go home and sleep after this gig was truly beyond me.
Ultimately, Muse are the type of live band that make you wish you were 17 again…to bear witness to such utter alchemy at the gateway of one’s musical odyssey must be a truly incredible thing. At this point, I could wheel out all the usual gig review clichés…the gig was akin to an adrenaline shot through the ribcage, an exquisite kick to the head, blah blah blah, yet it seems a futile exercise; the succession of well-loved gems from Muse’s pristine repertoire leaves the crowd lost for words. Essentially, we are reduced, en masse, to a gibbering and hysterical mess, and left helpless with ringing ears, bleeding gums and in some extreme cases, piss-stained trousers. It was that type of evening.
As Douglas Coupland might have said, ‘it was like a very very nice car crash that never ends’.