Gig review: Muse

Published on Tuesday 10 November 2009 17:58

MUSE ***** SECC, GLASGOW

MUSE played two stratospheric nights at the newly-opened Wembley Stadium in 2007, where they practically made interplanetary contact: can this fearless band ever top that achievement? The riposte, on their current album, The Resistance, and accompanying tour is to stay big, bold – and just a little ridiculous.

Musically and visually, Muse hark back to 1970s superbands with the sort of grandiose flourishes and unapologetically theatrical live presentation once favoured by the likes of Pink Floyd. Just as indulgent as those old warhorses, there is also a ferocious discipline to Muse's turbo-charged music and performance.

The design for this show was relatively simple yet audacious, opening with each band member – frontman Matt Bellamy, drummer Dom Howard and bassist Chris Wolstenholme – perched on top of their own hydraulic plinth, on to which striking Bauhaus-inspired images were projected.

The new material held its own against old favourites, with the pomp operatics of United States Of Eurasia, pounded out by Bellamy on an illuminated grand piano, in a bombastic class of its own.

Often looking like a little boy at hyperactive play, Bellamy is a mighty player and an exceptional vocalist with a judiciously deployed falsetto and a few hints of a crooner sensibility during the set's more intimate moments, suggesting a stripped-back Muse show could be a spine-tingling experience.

There was nothing stripped-back about their enormous confetti-filled balloons or the bizarre bagpipe, bass and drums jam – which, one suspects, was a little extra treat for Glasgow, but after all this over-the-top eccentricity, Muse still had their piece de resistance in reserve for the finale – a thunderous rendition of Ennio Morricone's Man With A Harmonica leading into the spaghetti space western epic Knights Of Cydonia, still the ultimate expression of their preposterous, brilliant ethos.