Muse – Live @ Austin City Limits

September 21, 2007

After catching the very beginning of Andrew Bird (always fantastic) and waiting at the AT&T stage during Damien Rice (who was surprisingly awesome) me and my three friends were fourth row for our most anticipated show of the festival, Muse. Being a huge Muse fan, I was prepared to have my face melted off and the band succeeded in putting on the most bombastic, visually spectacular, musically mind-blowing performance I’ve ever seen. The band opened with perhaps their most grandiose song, “Knights of Cydonia”, with the lyrics of the chorus rushing at you on the gigantic light screen behind the band. On the stage, everything had lights attached to it. There were lights on the drum set, on the guitars, and lit up as notes were hit on the piano.

The band played another favorite from their latest album, “Map of the Problematique” and at the end of the song Matt Bellamy stamped out the riff from “Citizen Erased”. “Hysteria” came next which features some of the most ridiculous bass-playing I’ve ever heard and “Supermassive Black Hole”, while a bit disappointing as a lead-off single, was awesome live, due to a crazy robotic sounding guitar solo and some really sweet futuristic visuals. It’s at this point that Muse decided to break out “Butterflies and Hurricaines”, which is most notable for the bridge where Matt trades in his electric guitar for a grand piano and plays a mind-numbing solo that would make Sergei Rachmaninoff proud. Muse kept the piano front and center with performances of “Feelin’ Good” and “Sunburn” and then quieted the set down with a couple acoustic numbers.

Muse picked things up again with three of their hardest hitting songs “New Born”, “Time Is Running Out”, and “Plug In Baby”. Bellamy’s guitar work is absolutely out-of-this world, he’s so in the moment when he’s playing, and it’s completely awe-inspiring to watch (you should note that this is all while singing in his incredible falsetto). The band ended the set with early fave “Micro Cuts” and the best Muse track ever, “Stockholm Syndrome” (featuring a 10 minute extended solo that involved sprawling out on the floor and kicking over amps). My friends and I left the park absolutely overwhelmed at how amazing the whole experience was. My favorite show of the weekend, hands down.

MP3 Stockholm Syndrome
MP3 Plug in Baby

Posted by Taylor in Festival, Live