Muse
Live at Leeds Festival 2011 on Friday, 26th August 2011
The long wait for Muse had the crowd watching the skies with a glimmer of hope that the rain would hold off long enough for the Teignmouth trio to warm them up. The stage was hidden by an orange shroud as it was prepared for the long anticipated celebration gig marking the anniversary of 10 years since Muse's second album, Origin of Symmetry was released. The crowd began to grow restless and eventually the huge orange banner was lifted, much to their delight.
Muse tore apart Bramham Park with lasers, strobe lights and epic riffs from songs such as Hysteria and Stockholm Syndrome, but not until after they had played the entire Origin of Symmetry album in full, something which they have never done before since its release in 2001. They blasted through New Born and gave the first performance of Hyper Music since 2003, much to the delight of fans.
Plug In Baby had the biggest crowd reaction so far, seeing the entire arena dancing in time to the epic opening riff and giant eyeballs bouncing over the top of the crowd. The album performance also saw Dark Shines played for the first time since 2001, with the heavy piano shaking the crowd and fire billowing upwards into the rain, thoroughly warming up the delighted crowd.
The light show can only be described as 'epic' and somewhat beautiful combined with the rain and stunning backdrop that showed robots marching in unison, giant cartoon animals taking over a city. It was very alien, and VERY Muse.
The final song was fan favourite 'Knights of Cydonia', with a harmonica intro provided by bassist Chris Wolstenholme, and the sweaty crowd all bounced in unison once more, singing along to the opening riff in a 'naaaa, naaa naaa naaaaaaa' fashion, mimicking Matt Bellamy's screaming falsetto, and bellowing out the lyrics and completely blowing me away by the sheer amount of noise coming from them.
It's easy to say they will be a tough act to follow for tomorrow's headliners My Chemical Romance, who used to share stages with the mighty Muse, but good luck to them, and hopefully tomorrow night will be just as stunning, even with all the mud and the rain!
