Last night, watching Muse gave me a little bit of a taste of what it must have been like to see Queen when Freddie Mercury was alive. Some might say that’s too bold of a comparison but I think Muse has a lot of similarities. Queen combined musical theatre performance and songwriting with modern rock. Muse combined classical music with rock and blues. Both are famous for their stage performances and production, if not most important though, both fronted by incredible vocalists.
Matthew Bellamy has the best live singing voice I may have ever heard. The band’s total execution in their musical performance was flawless. I was blown away that the three members and their additional live musician playing synths and guitar were able to create such a full and complex sound. The performance mirrored and elevated the experience of listening to them on a recording which is very difficult for bands to do even with today’s modern pitch correction and backing tracks.
The stage setup deserves its own mention. The setup included everything from giant moving mirrored video screens to motion tracking cameras providing a unique live experience layering visual effects on the live video feeds, to a pair of glasses vocalist Matthew Bellamy wore for their song Madness that projected the lyrics while he sung along. They may not have been the most energetic three piece band but the time and effort put into the visuals made the show engaging and caused each song to stick out on its own.
The songs were varied from across their catalogue, from their breakout single Plug In Baby to the show’s crescendo Mercy. When they played Mercy they finished it a bang; confetti and ribbon cannons created a celebratory and euphoric energy in the crowd that made the concert nothing short of epic.
If I wanted to find a complaint about the show I wouldn’t be able to; the sound was perfect and the performance was flawless. What else could you want? Muse proved that they deserve to be in the top 10 must-see performers in the world today.
By Dylan Lenton
