Some bands open a tour with a new backdrop and a fresh coat of paint on the same old show. Muse opened theirs with a spaceship.
Muse kicked off the UK and European leg of The Wow! Signal arena tour last night, Thursday, November 12, at Co-op Live in Manchester, and night one came with two live debuts, a stage built like the underside of a UFO, and a setlist that went straight for the throat.
TWO LIVE DEBUTS, NO WARM-UP LAP
They opened with three songs off The Wow! Signal, the band's tenth album, which came out back in June: Hexagon, The Sickness In You & I, and Unravelling. The Sickness In You & I had never been played live before. Neither had The Dark Forest, which showed up later in the set with an astronaut floating across the middle of the big V shaped screen while the band played on both sides of it. First night of the tour and they're already debuting songs. No easing into anything.
“First night of the tour and they're already debuting songs. No easing into anything.”
Moe Train
YES, THERE'S A SPACESHIP
Bellamy told NME earlier this year that the band was trying to build a spaceship for this run, and his exact words were, "We're trying to build a spaceship, as you do." He also said the quote for the thing came in higher than some houses in Primrose Hill, which is a rich part of London, so do the math on what this stage costs.
He starts the show on a smaller stage out in the middle of the floor, inside a ball of LED lights that rises up around him. There's a walkway connecting it to the main stage, a circular rig dropping lasers over the band, and, per one fan post from inside the arena that I can't stop laughing at, a giant space croissant. The fan's words: "We have a giant space croissant in Manchester." Space program, pastry division. I'm sold.
THE HITS STILL HIT
The rest of the set did its job too: Hysteria, Supermassive Black Hole, Plug In Baby, Psycho, Madness, Time Is Running Out, Uprising, Knights Of Cydonia, and Starlight near the end. The run keeps moving tonight with a second Manchester show, then The O2 in London on November 15 and 16, Berlin on November 18, and Milan on November 20 and 21. Next summer the band plays BST Hyde Park in London on June 26 and Roundhay Festival in Leeds on June 27. If night one is the starting point, this show is only getting bigger from here.
Source: NME
