The momentum flagged briefly during a patch of slow songs, but not for long. This two-hour show delivered everything that a Muse fan could reasonably have expected: opening with “Uprising”, from last year’s The Resistance album (complete with extras marching around waving flags bearing the song’s slogan, “They will not control us”), they kept the crowd singing and punching the air with blockbuster tunes such as “Supermassive Black Hole” (with more than a whiff of Hendrix in Bellamy’s guitar playing), “New Born”, “Feeling Good”, “Time is Running Out”, the sensational “Stockholm Syndrome” and, of course, the screaming “Plug in Baby”. (Also on stage was the mysterious fourth member, playing keyboards and other instruments, vital but unacknowledged.) Bassist Chris Wolstenholme, meanwhile, plays with a distinctive thrum and locks into the drummer’s groove. In Bellamy, they have a genuinely brilliant musician, a guitarist of astounding fluidity, a vocalist whose voice soars and shimmers, and a pianist of some accomplishment. Of course, none of this would have meant much without the bulging compendium of epic, stadium-filling choruses and riffs that Muse have assembled in their decade or so as a recording band, and the gut-rumbling power with which they delivered their songs. At times it felt as if I was staring at the dawn of creation, into an explosion of light and colour floodlights pulsed, immaculately synchronised with the drums of Dominic Howard, while a firmament of spotlights crackled, sparked, snapped and sizzled. And the video screens showed a brilliantly jittery rendition of the events on stage.īut it was the lighting that played a real blinder. Also, a spaceship made an appearance (I won’t give away its surprise ingredient).
#Uprising muse live wembley series#
No wonder Muse win so many awards and polls as “Best Live Band”.Īt Wembley, the stage set was built to resemble the corner of some weirdly proportioned office block, beneath which the band performed a satellite stage (now de rigueur in stadium shows) was also part of their armoury, as were a series of big illuminated spheres arranged behind the stage. I’ve followed their progress over the years, and each time I see them, they get bigger, more epic, more fantastic.
But visually they were on another planet, somewhere in another galaxy: this was awesome, dazzling, dizzying, huge. Musically they were recognisably the same band – though over the years they have acquired a few more influences (adding Queen, disco and spaghetti-western themes to their unique cocktail of styles). It was a terrific show, with some truly powerful music, but as far as visuals were concerned, the confetti moment was about as good as it got.Ĭompare and contrast that little affair with last night, the first of two nights at Wembley Stadium.
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