Muse
Air Canada Centre
March 8th 2010
It was completely impossible for me to consider reviewing Muse with an unbiased opinion. I love Muse and I've never had a chance to see them live so I went into the Air Canada Centre expecting a great show.
I was wrong.
It was better than that.
Muse give a performance that is visually and sonically stunning from every seat in the venue. The stage is setup with 3 towers which act both as screens for the fantastic visuals and as risers for the trio. I've seen a lot of great uses of live video / pre shot video integration but Muse have taken it to another level (pun not entirely unintended).
Given how complex some of their studio work is you'd expect them the songs to sound weaker/stripped down live. Muse manage to perform their material even better than it was recorded and Matthew Bellamy is a joy to watch. A genuine rock star and a frighteningly talented musician (guitar, vocals and piano. It's amazing how effortlessly he sings and plays great guitar parts and how flawlessly Christopher and Dominic execute their parts.
Muse are a huge Euro band but they've never quite broken the North American market. Their "Twilight" soundtrack success as well as the success of their 2009 release "The Resistance" should be the tipping point for U.S. recognition. New fans would have known a lot of the Resistance heavy set but their best and greatest hits were there too: "Hysteria", "Supermassive Black Hole", "Starlight" and "Knights of Cydonia". They even threw in some Canadian content playing a cover of Rush's "YYZ"
Where they lacked (in my opinion) was audience interaction. Not that it's easy to interact when you're 30 feet up on a scissor lift, but I really do like it when the frontband makes an effort - like Rivers Cuomo from Weezer did when he played the same venue in December. But if that's the only thing that Muse did wrong then that's not bad.
I say it a lot but if Muse are coming to your town then make sure you're at the show.