For all the video projections and pyrotechnics that accompanied it, Muse’s entrance onto the Emirates stage last night was disappointingly anticlimactic. This was partly because there was still so much daylight in the stadium but, mainly, it was down to there being so many empty seats. Maybe earlycomers had been driven to the bar by support act Dizzee Rascal’s constant refrains of "let's go fucking mental." Or possibly it was just a bad day on the tube. Whatever the truth, the stadium felt horribly devoid of any kind of atmosphere. It was going to be an uphill job to conquer it.
Muse responded with a concert of two halves. The first was a fairly conventional rock gig. Despite the hefty budget and lavish screens, up on the stage there was nothing more fancy than a drum kit, a keyboard and the three band members. On songs like "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Panic Station" they grafted extremely hard.
A giant lightbulb floated across the audience. When the song neared its end a trapeze artist spilled out
Musicians are often described as having instruments that seem like extensions of their bodies. It has never been truer than when applied to Matt Bellamy and his guitar. There can’t be anyone else alive so effortlessly able to play one thing, sing another, and then run across a stage like a ferret. Chris Wolstenholme on bass and Dominic Howard on drums weren't half bad either.
Still, it wasn’t until "Knights of Cydonia", when 40,000 people spontaneously started jumping up and down, that the band really began to own the Emirates. Until then everything had seemed a little distant. During the banker-bashing song "Animals", for instance, when fake money was sprayed around the stalls, the dynamics of the venue made it hard for the audience to really engage with what was going on.
But once the sun went down everything changed. The visual focus was now more emphatic, and Bellamy and co brought a renewed sense of theatre to some of their more flamboyant and idiosyncratic numbers.
The musical highlight came halfway during “Madness.” For the first part of the number Bellamy had worn a pair of dark glasses, and sung into a camera which projected his face 40-foot high. Then he stepped away from the camera, strapped on his guitar and played that inimitable solo so nonchalanty it knocked everyone’s socks off. The lowlight was when Chris Wolstenholme sang “Liquid State.” I appreciate that it refers to a very painful time in his life, but it was still just a racket.
Special mention must go to the rather lovely interlude when the band occupied the B-stage at the end of the catwalk. During “Unintended” the stadium was lit like a starry night by lighters and smartphones. On “Blackout” a giant lightbulb floated across the audience. When the song neared its end a trapeze artist spilled out. After the interlude was over and the band returned to the main stage, they were joined by a huge robot called Charlie singing “Unsustainable”. The last three quarters of an hour became the musical equivalent of watching a Doctor Who special.
They gave us a little over two hours of what is an increasingly treasured repertoire. It might have taken a little while to get going but by the final songs of the night – the rousing “Uprising” and “Starlight” - it was undeniably Muse 1, Emirates Stadium 0.
Watch the video for the new single "Panic Station"