Concert Review – Muse, Atlanta, GA

Posted by Susan in Sound Bytes with SusanAshlea | 3 comments

by Megsly

What in the world does this have to do with writing, fan fiction, vampires or paranormal books, you might ask? Well, nothing really… until you realize that this band might actually be the reason the Twilight Saga even exists. The aptly named Muse was, in fact, Stephenie Meyer’s muse while writing the books, as is well noted in her extensive thank you’s and acknolwedgements in the books.

After Saturday night’s concernt, I can understand why.

My friends and I have what is called The Trifecta of Awesome. What is that? It’s 3 bands/artists that we have discovered since January or 2009 that we decided we must see live before we die. Those three are James Morrison, Kings of Leon, and Muse. As of now, 2 legs of our Trifecta of Awesome is complete. Unfortunately, should James Morrison make his way to the US, he’ll have to come a little bit closer because Muse is pretty much the only band I would make this trip to see.

Atlanta is 470 miles from me, clocking in at almost an exact 7 hour drive. That’s wouldn’t have been so bad, if I didn’t make the trip in less than 48 hours. I left my house at 5pm Friday evening and returned at 3pm Sunday afternoon. We didn’t get to Atlanta until 1:30am (EST-we lost an hour), and that was after taking the wrong exit (thank you, Google Maps. I shall never use you again), and nearly running out of gas in a not-so-nice section of town. Our excitement of making it to town only last a few minutes and we crashed within an hour of unloading our stuff.

Saturday dawned early, as I woke up feeling sick. I couldn’t get my blood sugar stable, then once I did, I couldn’t get back to sleep. We met up with some friends, went to some wine-tastings at a local winery, met up with another TwiFiccie for lunch and then went back to the hotel for some R&R. I was absolutely exhausted by the time showtime rolled around.

Silversun PIckups, the opening band was… not bad. I would be intimidated if I were them, and I probably wouldn’t have taken the opening spot for Muse either. But that’s just me. Lucky for us, they only played about 40 minutes or so. At precisely 9pm, the lights went down and the real show started. The stage set up was round, with two wings and 3 massive columns that at first looked like backdrops, but were actually projector screens. Unbeknownst to the viewer with the lights up, the columns all split in the middle, aided by massive hydraulics, with each column having a small “stage” in the middle. The intro showed projected video on the columns and then the lights went down again…

When the lights went up, Uprising blasted through the speakers, and each member of the band was elevated on their own personal stage, with projected images on the screens above and below. The effect was quite exhilirating.

After they played Uprising, the went directly into Resistance and from there, I have no idea what the actual set list was. I know they played every song I wanted to hear, with the exception of Butterflies & Hurricanes, which was the only disappointment. The music was amazing, the band sounded phenomenal and the crowd was deafening. I was continually amazed at the cross-section of America that I saw at this concert. An opera singer behind me, cowboys next to me, some Twi-teens on the end of the row, retired couples a few rows ahead and a couple of punk wanna-bees in front of me. It was definitely a slice of Americana… and everyone of them reacted with violent enthusiasam when the grand piano made it’s first appearance and Matt Bellamy played the first notes of United States of Eurasia. That songs still gets to me, makes me think, and judging by the reaction of the crowd, not only did their point get made, but massively agreed with as well. With the exception of the wait time before the encore, and the opening song, I think the crowd was the loudest during United States of Eurasia.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the people around me knew the material. The popularity of The Resistance might have been what made the North American tour possible, but the people were, for the most part, actual fans of the music – only the opera singer behind me didn’t know all of the songs played. The set list was a great mix of the last few albums, including a couple from my favorite, Origin of Symmetry.

When the show was coming to a close – I recognized the mournful harmonica strains that accompanied Knights of Cydonia, and knew it was the last song – we were sad. The band played for almost 2 hours, and I would have listened to them play all night. As it is, I’m glad we have tickets for another show because one Muse concert in a lifetime really isn’t enough.

I can’t remember the order of the set list, but here are some of the songs that were played, in no particular order (and please forgive me if I miss any, because I can’t remember them all):

Uprising
Resistance
Hysteria
Map of the Problematique
Supermassive Black Hole
United States of Eurasia
Newborn
Time is Running Out
Feeling Good
Plug in Baby
MK Ultra
Guiding Light
Undisclosed Desires
Unnatural Selection
Exogenesis Symphony #1
Stockholm Syndrome
Knights of Cydonia

And for your viewing pleasure, a couple of videos from the beginning of the show. My camera only lets me film video for a minute at a time, so there are three, if you are so inclined to watch them. And I don’t think you can hear me singing in the background. Enjoy!