Muse: Wembley Stadium, 16/06/07 - It Really WAS The Best Concert I’ll Ever See June 18, 2007
Posted by blanathema in Bands, Live Music, Muse, Music.trackback
You may have noticed that the last three posts on my blog have been about Muse and I apologize to any one who’s not a fan but to be honest, they deserve it. After looking forward to Saturday evening for so long, it seems as if it whizzed by in a blur but, I must add, it was an incredible blur of brilliant music. There was not one part of the performance that I found to be disappointing and given that this was the first time I’d seen Muse live, they had an enormous reputation to live up to. Thankfully, they more than lived up to their reputation as one of the Planet’s best live bands and I only wish I could have been there for the second night to watch it all over again.
The whole idea of a ‘review’ would be to pick out the good and bad parts of a show and say what it was that made it special (or not). With Saturday’s concert, though, that is going to prove a very difficult thing to do. As I said, everything there was perfect. The songs were performed fantastically and sounded a million times better than the album versions do. I’ll do my best, though, to explain why it was truly one of the most exciting things I have ever witnessed.
Never ones for playing things down, Muse decided to make a grand entrance via the centre of the stadium. In a burst of confetti, the three appeared from what appeared to be a lighting tent in the middle of the pitch. Standing back to back, the let the confetti clear to reveal themselves and then headed down the runway up towards a stage, piled high with various space-themed props, complete with six glass satellites pointing out of the roof and several, giant, inflated balls in the empty seating area behind the stage. We all had a good idea what was going to be played first and this was proved to be right, with the band launching right into Knights of Cydonia to much enthusiasm from the crowd. To see why, just watch the video below of the crowd’s reaction to their epic, 70s-style rock anthem. The lyrics to the “No one is going to take me alive!” section were flashed, word-by-word, onto the screen behind them before the song arrived at its ultimate finale. The stadium seemed to lift off the ground as that riff exploded forth from the stage.
I’ll not go through each and every song they played, that would take me days and you could always look at the setlist I included in the last post. Instead, I’ll just run through some of the highlights, even though every damn song was a highlight.
After Knights of Cydonia, Muse tore their way through some of the more well-known singles such as Hysteria and Supermassive Black Hole. It was nice to see, though, that because of the length of the set, they were not restricted to just cramming in the big hits. Some of those big, epic tracks from ‘Origin of Symmetry’ made their way into the show, too, with Citizen Erased and Micro Cuts both making a rare appearance. The only thing that could have topped this off would have been Darkshines, possibly my favourite ever Muse song. Still, we can’t have everything, can we?
The screens behind the band on stage were used well, sometimes being used to show distorted images of the group playing and at other times being used to display animation sequences. For example, Feeling Good was played to the backdrops of a beautiful countryside landscape whilst Supermassive Black Hole had a procession of dancing robots. All this was very good but the fun started at the end of the main set, with New Born being the final song. The previously mentioned glass satellites positioned across the stage suddenly burst into life, moving to project searchlight beams out of the stadium roof before slowly moving downwards to scan their way through the audience. It had a brilliant effect and worked amazingly with New Born.
After coming back on for the first of two encores, the band stepped the pace down a bit and played some of their slower, more relaxed songs. Soldier’s Poem, the song that has an unmistakable similarity to Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. was followed by Unintended and Blackout. The former was absolutely beautiful, especially when played to a crowd of 90 000 holding their lit-up mobile phones aloft. It was at some point during these two songs that the much-talked-about acrobats emerged from alongside the stage, suspended on wires from two of the large inflated balls that rested behind the set up to this point; once again, it worked brilliantly with the chosen songs. After a quick tour round the stadium, though, the acrobats headed back to where they came from before a load of giant balloons, each filled with confetti, was released from the stage to mark the final song of this first encore, Plug In Baby.
By this point, we had unfortunately reached the final three songs of the concert. Whilst I was privately hoping the second encore to open with Bliss or Muscle Museum we got something much, much better; Micro Cuts. I never expected to hear this spectacular song played live and thank God I did. It really was amazing and probably one of the best bits of the evening. Micro Cuts was followed by Stockholm Syndrome and, as I’d been told would be last, Take A Bow. Despite the predictability, it really is a fantastic finale to such an amazing concert. Finally, after Matt taking a bow himself and flames erupting from the front of the stage, Muse left the stage for the final time that evening.
All in all, the concert was incredible and I doubt anything other than another Muse performance could live up to its brilliance. Still, if you’d not worked out my opinion on it after reading this far, you must be stupid. There’s nothing I could say to criticize this performance, it being the best I’ve ever seen. My passion for Muse has now shot to a whole new level and I really have listened to nothing else since coming home early Sunday morning. All I’ve got to do now is wait for the DVD later this year to relive the night. I just hope they don’t do another ‘Absolution Tour DVD’ on us and cut out half the songs.
B.
By the way, there are another few pictures on yesterday’s post about the concert, as well as a setlist of all songs played
I wish I could’ve been there.
I’m going to their concert on Aug 6th at Madison Square Garden. I only hope they play a setlist as long and awesome as that one.
This was seriously the best gig i ever went to, I was down near the front on the saturday, I admit I hated the support bands but it was worth the wait to hear Matt’s beautiful voice!
fantastic gig
Yeah, it really was an incredible gig. I too was at the front on the Saturday. I’ve always been a huge Radiohead fan and their South Park gig in Oxford will always be my all-time best gig. However, I think this gig has now put Muse among the best bands in the world, and this is definately the second best gig I’ve ever been to. An truly memorable night!
hey, nice review. absolutely fantastic gig..its hard to say whether its my favourtie muse gig, i think the first time’s always something special and for me that was Manchester in 2003. It says something about them that they can make playing wembley stadium look the most natural thing ever. i’ve done a review myself on http://jarock87.blogspot.com. check it out see what you think : )
i just can use a spanish word to describe it(i am a spaniard) i was there on sunday and although i also hated the other bands(to emo crap for my taste) muse was “ACOJONANTE” the absolutely best concert that i’ve ever been
well…….it’s not often that you are still hearing the songs and visualising the images days after the concert has finished but that’s exactly what i’m experiencing. am i dreaming…no; am i high….yes but no drugs involved here. just the magic of the sounds of muse and their amazing stage presence and performance. matt bellamy is just the most excitng and accomplished performer i’ve ever had the pleasure to see. respect to the guys…this was an awesome gig and the best i’ve ever been to.
Wow. I wasn’t a major fan before i was actually a live muse virgin, but i won tickets at work. I was totally blown away by the experience. An audio/visual orgasm it was so intense i have bored my work colleagues to tears. I just hope the live dvd captures it all. And the acoustics were amazing not bad for a stadium gig now i will listen to nothing else but muse.
i love muse with all my soul and thats how ive felt since i heard them in 2002…i saw muse for the first time last year in france and trvelled all the way there to see them..when i saw they were playin both nights at wembley i just had to go…9000km later and a weekend of two muse shows…wow..life couldnt get any better…like a zillion orgasms over an extended period..most memorable for me were ( newborn, microcuts, citizen erased, man of mystery, city of delusion) the only thing i wished was that muse played glorious live at wembley i think just would have been so so epic…watching muse live is like shooting up with heroin im guessing..cos i need to see them more and more..play glorious for me next time…lol..im a brat
Muse..Wembley…June 2007
I didn’t really know much Muse before i went to Wembley…I knew they were good live so thought going to see them would be great…and it was…completely brilliant! I loved their cover of feeling good…and those acrobats! definately in my top 3 of all time. Will definately go and see them again.
Thought The Streets were ace too…really warmed the crowd up!
I saw Muse at Leeds festival last year already knowing quite a few of their songs, and I had heard about their reputation, and read the hype in the magazines leading up to the festival. I did not expect them to blow me away as much as they did then. From that moment I got all the songs, they became my favourite band, and Sunday 17th at Wembley was unbelievably awesome! The choice of songs was spot on, and everything about the show was immense! Im glad I was there to see them play Bliss, Sing For Absolution, and Apocalypse Please, songs missing from the Saturday night show. Also Invincible is brilliant performed live and really got me going, along with the ‘anthem’ Knights Of Cydonia- what a way to kick off the gig and get the crowd in the mood! Other songs that couldn’t fail to get a good old ruckous going on the pitch were New Born, Stockholm Syndrome, Hysteria, and of course, fans’ favourite Plug In Baby. 11/10 has to be the mark on a flawless, spectacular live show to match the stadium that held the event. Muse have sent a message down to other bands across the world, from their pedestal on high, because right now they are untouchable: one of the best bands in the world!!!
I saw Muse on the Saturday night at the Stadium and was totally blown away. I had also seen them at Wembley Arena back in November and was on a high for days afterwards. There are no suitable adjectives to do the band justice as they are just simply the best performers by far to see live. The Stadium gig was a spectacle, their music is so dramatic and I find that I am humming their tunes all the time in my head. I love the way they perform just giving the fans what they want the superb music without the talking inbetween. That way they can play more of their great songs. Matt Bellamy is a genius of our day with such unique vocals and an amazingly talented musician. I have loved the band ever since I first heard Unintended back in the late 90’s which incidently I rate as one of the most, if not the most, beautiful songs ever written. They just keep getting better and better, if that’s possible, and keep changing their style slightly with each album but always retaining that sound that is unique to Muse.
I had heard a few of Muse’s songs on a couple of music channels from time to time and thought ‘YES!, This is perfect, it is what i want from music’, then luckily they headlined at Glastonbury Festival in 2004…my ‘proper’ introduction to Muse and WOOOOAH did they impress me! On the way home from Glastonbury i brought their all their cds and have ADORED them ever since. On the 21st of November i saw them again at Wembley Arena, they truly blew me away, it really was one of the best experiences you can have, everything about it was just IMMENSE!!! However as if it couldn’t get any better, i saw them at ‘WEMBLEY FUCKING STADIUM’…they amazed me soo much that my mind went completly blank throughout the entire set, i didn’t know what to make of it…it was soo INTENSE yet completly flawless i was on SUCH A HIGH!! (who else can make you feel like you have smoked a ridiculous amount of cannabis just by their very presence)….this feeling didnt fade until two/three weeks afterwards and every time i think about it, the glorious feeling returns……….it really was IN-CREDIBLE and Matthew Bellamy can only be described as a ‘Genius’. I love him!!!!!
i went on the 17th and i can say it was the best concert eva! it is one tht is very hard to describe it jst kicked ass!
i went to muse on sunday and it was the best concert ive been to!
didnt know many of their songs but when i left, i liked so many more!
amazing atmosphere, including before their performance.
knights of cydonia was an amazing introduction song!
i was there both days…. and i even camped outside wembley stadium the night before the 16th.. .and i am not lying, im trying desperately to find a pic of me and sum of the peeps i met down there, it was quite cold out there at night, but being there was something i wouldnt have missed for the world it was all worth it!!! …… ooo and btw i was the guy that passed out during the dirty pretty things, felt like shit i guess due to my lack of sleep and lack of food, i avent been able to find a dirty pretty things video online with me on it, i really want to see it one tho, just to laugh at myself, lol did anyone see??? it was rather embarrassing, althoguh i had had a blackout!! get it !! blackout!!… woo im cool lol