Mike Regan
Considering the mixed critical reception that greeted Muse’s symphonic rock opus, The Resistance, one would
be forgiven for thinking that Muse’s creative powers were on the slide. Their latest offering spent most of its considerable length tottering on the thin dividing line between genre-bending genius and self indulgent pomp.
Yet Muse have never done things any differently and their latest work has simply represented their final shedding of their paltry creative inhibitions, and fittingly the accompanying tour leaves no room for subtlety and intimacy.
The centrepiece of Muse’ typically ambitious stage décor are three 20ft mock tower blocks that loom menacingly over an audience anticipating a unique rock spectacle. As the ferocious opening offering , Uprising kicks in , the tower’s tarpaulin frontage falls to reveal the band perched above the audience, inside of the tower blocks. Three songs later as an apocalyptic New Born begins, Muse are lowered in order to adopt a more conventional stage set up. But ‘conventional’ is a word that was wiped from Muse’s rock and roll lexicon a good while ago, and the song is accompanied by thousands of green laser beams darting across the cavernous arena. The entirety of the show never vacates the realms of the spectacular and the mind blowing , whether it be giant white confetti filled balloons that cascade onto the crowd during Bliss, or the Attenborough-esque film that accompanies a gorgeous rendition of Feeling Good.
The Hallam Arena might resemble an aircraft hanger, but on one bitterly cold Yorkshire night it was a cacophony of space rock histrionics capable of surprising even die hard Muse fans. For a band that consistently pushes the boundaries of contemporary rock music, it is a fittingly bombastic outing, and one that serves as a reminder that pretension aside, there powers are most definitely not on the wane.