Sunday, July 24, 2016

186 -- Muse -- Monday, February 1, 2016 -- Verizon Center -- DC

The road to Muse was the most stressful concert road I have ever traveled.  If you're interested in the harrowing backstory, feel free to message me, but no time to get into that now...

Fortunately, the show itself was excellent – perhaps the best visual spectacle I’ve seen.  Muse’s spacey paranoia and lack of annotation may limit how much I can connect with their songs, but as a concert, it was top notch. 

Here’s a bulleted rundown of the night: 

--- All ten tickets BOUGHT.  Giant sigh of relief.

--- Whoa, Ed Walinsky and Tyler Branscome are here!  Tom Swindell and Aren Sharp too!  Who will show up next?  Apparently, on stage, Elliot, from Elliot in the Morning

--- “Psycho”: a light romantic ballad to start...  Awesome floating bubble drones.  Hark: “I like the visuals.”  I like that the words weren't fully audible, so there were fewer poisoned young ears! ;)

--- “Dead Inside”: nice change of pace.

--- “Hysteria”!!!  It's not even one of my favorite songs, and I'm flipping out.  Such pent-up anxiety after Givers.  Time to just kick back and enjoy it; this will deliver!

--- “Map of the Problematique.” Less good, still good.

--- Um, I can't tell what the song was, but I can tell it was not good.

--- “Isolated System.”  Meh.

--- “The Handler.”  The giant, manipulatable puppet was cool.  

--- “Supermassive Black Hole”!!!  I cannot sit.  I am propelled up.  Sickkk hook.

--- “Starlight”!!  Exploding concrete balls!  Love how the kids look on in suspense to see when they'll burst.

--- “Apocalypse Please.”  More like this, please. 

--- Some unknown amazing instrumental!!  Aww at TK's head bob.

--- “Madness.”  Lies.  Sounds far too sane.  Picks up a bit by the end though -- soaring vocal -- nice.  Cool U2 360 vibe.  Totally brought me around.

--- “Resistance.”  Also strong -- well sequenced. 

--- “Reapers” is decent.  Lackluster verses, cool beats.

--- “Time is Running Out”!!  Lol, now JS is full head banging as well.

--- “Uprising”!  The vocals are oddly a little hard to hear.  Hark serves as a backup singer.  He is not hard to hear.  Hark is never hard to hear.
--- Silly that they haven't talked to the crowd once yet.  Really would move it to the next level.

--- “The Globalist.”  Awesome whistle intro.  So pure and cool.  I think it sounds like an intro to The Hateful Eight; Hark thinks it sounds like Titanic.  Our marriage...

--- Four minutes of Matt Bellamy's sleep-inducing drones...  The literal space shuttle that flies around stage redeems it.  As do the two minutes of red blasts that follow.  Gah, four more minutes of soporific drones.  Hark: “Beautiful.” Whoa, unexpected.

--- Equally unexpected?  Finding out that this is the last show of the North American tour.  Glad they made it to us.

--- “Mercy.”  Love that they put this on the tour setlist after the bombing in Paris.  Confetti!

Grade: A

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