The rights and wrongs with the Muse of today

Yesterday I saw a little-known English band by the name of Muse for the third time in as many years. It was a good show, filled with bold, fuzzy solos, stunning set production and vocals so high-pitched that the windows of the Emirates Stadium nearly shattered. In some respects, it was the best performance I’ve seen them put on in my admittedly short-lived fandom, but in the places that really matter, the stuff that makes for a memorable evening, it was lagging behind.

To nip this in the bud; I’m not a fan of the band’s latest effort - The 2^nd Law. There are some undeniably enjoyable songs on the track list, but nothing that makes up for the heartbreak of hearing one of the UK’s biggest rock acts trying their hand at dubstep. A tour to support that album was never going to be a winner in my books, then. That said it’s not the sole perpetrator.

Since the release of Black Holes & Revelations a Muse setlist has become a predictable thing: Knights of Cydonia has become an essential set-closer, Plug-in Baby dare not miss a single show and Supermassive Black Hole will swoop in to save the day after a potentially wobbly opening. These shows haven’t changed much in that regards, thus some sections of the set are starting to grow stale. Meanwhile, there are a few, vexing changes, like taking Cydonia’s mesmerising riffs away from the end of the set list and awkwardly jamming them into the show not long past the start. It’s a song that deserves to be treated with all the majesty and importance of the first time you heard it, not a warm-up for bigger things to come.

But setlist nit-picking is just that, so let’s get to one of the bigger issues that plagued the band’s performance – the theatrics. The 2^nd Law is supposedly an album all about how we’ve messed up the planet and we should all hate ourselves for it. To show this, Muse first put on a video of world leaders dancing like idiots to the satirical Animals before bringing out a business man who’d had a bad day at the stock exchange to angrily hurl money at the crowds (well, fake Muse money at least), followed by a business woman that seemingly commits suicide by guzzling gasoline from a pump like there’s no tomorrow. The culmination of these themes results in a five minute video before the final encore, showing people desperately trying to escape the evils of industrialisation and being sucked up in the process. It was, in a word, a pantomime.

I respect activism in bands a great deal; most of my favourite artists have made huge contributions to campaigning for what they believe in and it’s a part of what raises a great band to an iconic one, but there’s a difference between that and pretentious preaching that gets in the way of the music. All these charades really do is stand to sever the connection between the fans and the song as the crowd lurch their heads around to follow what’s going on. It quickly becomes tiresome, and by the time the video is running you’re wondering what the band hopes to get out of droning on about this to a swarm of care-free teenagers that are using the extra time to catch their breath and plan the journey home.

There are some highlights, like a gigantic, evil robot that takes to the stage during that dubstep song, and an inflatable light bulb that journeys around the arena dangling an elegant dancer beneath it, though the effort to get across the ‘unsustainable’ message here makes Bono look like a girl scout selling cookies.  

Two years ago the band played two electric shows at the Reading and Leeds festivals where they paid tribute to the tenth anniversary of Origin of Symmetry. It was a set that was all about them, their music, and just how incredible that album is. It was their sound taking front and centre stage, making it easily the best performance from the band I’ve ever seen. This band needs to focus on recapturing that magic while scaling down on the angry messages that drowned yesterday’s show.

That is to say all is not lost. There were highlights in the set list that showcased a rare bit of humanisation from the three musicians, including the unexpected visits to their debut album, Showbiz, and a welcome warmth from Bellamy as he spent the entirety of Undisclosed Desires down with the crowd, hugging fans, laughing at signs and letting over-excited girls scream into the microphone. That’s the stuff of great mainstream music right there, and I hope we see plenty more of it come the next album circuit.

Muse are still a great band; an underwhelming album won’t change that fact, but it’s time for them to start reeling in and coming back to some of the fans that feel like they’ve been led astray in the past year. It wasn’t long ago that they were putting on some of the best, most energetic shows they could muster. Let’s hope it isn’t too long before we get back there.