At Festival Hall, Melbourne 8-9-04
Thu, 1 January 1970
by: Fazz
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Festival Hall in Melbourne isn’t known as a particularly great live venue by any stretch of the imagination, so why do booking agents keep running shows there? Maybe it’s because it’s the nice halfway between some club like the Hi-Fi bar or the Palace and the upscale arenas.
Wednesday the 8th of September, 2004 brought one of my all-time favorite bands back to Australia; Muse. When I got the tickets I was a little disappointed that it would be held at Festival Hall, due to its poor visibility and atrocious acoustics. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Wednesday rolled around and myself, my girlfriend and a couple of friends piled into the car and headed off to Dudley St. West Melbourne for what would prove to be a true moment in concert history. After fiddling around in the line and many hassles with security and inner-city parking we finally took our seats just as the supporting act was finishing up. So we waited… and waited.
Halfway through Rage Against the Machine’s “Bullet in the Head” playing across the P.A. the opening drum intro to “Apocalypse Please” thundered through the hall. The audience decided now was the time to go completely nuts! This song also launched the amazing Muse light show. Lights everywhere, even to the point where lights were plastered all over the front of Matt Bellamy’s keyboards, showing the audience every tricky little line he played. Next the band tore into “Hysteria”, a rollicking huge head-mosher of a song. This got the crowd into a frenzy!
At last a classic song. The crowd went bananas as the opening keyboard strains of “New Born”, the brilliant first track off “Origin of Symmetry” sung through the old venue. If anyone wasn’t paying attention before, they were now. Everyone was singing along with Matt as he played towards the huge guitar part that launches the rest of the song. If that wasn’t enough to get the place really pumping, the next song was. The KoRn-esq, down tuned nasty guitar intro to “Citizen Erased” got a cheer of approval from the crowd, turning the place into one huge seething mass.
At about this stage the huge backdrop depicting a stylized version of the cover art to Muse’s latest offering “Absolution” dropped to the floor, revealing three huge video screens. The screens started showing strange visualizations in time with the music, a-la Tool at Rod Laver Arena. As the band ripped into the old-school favorite “Sunburn”, the screens began showing live footage of the band live on stage as they played, shot by hidden cameras in the instruments and members of the crew roaming around the stage. These visuals also had strange and wonderful effects in time with the music, ensuring a visual feast as well as an aural one.
As the band continued to tear through their set list, we were regaled with renditions of all our favorites. Matt and gang tore through songs such as “Muscle Museum”, “Thoughts of a Dying Atheist” and many more. At last the real crowd pleasers assaulted our ears. Muse launched into the songs we all came to know and love the band by.
The moshpit favorite “Deadstar” got people on the feet again, followed closely by the two huge singles from their second release, “Plug-in Baby” and “Bliss”… then the opening bass line to “Time is Running Out” thundered out of the speakers and received a roar of excitement from the loyal punters.
After over 90 minutes of amazing music, lights, visuals and an outstanding performance by this British trio, Muse closed the show with the blistering debut single from Absolution, “Stockholm Syndrome”, getting every single soul in the place, even those up in the nosebleeds, to their feet and jumping. The final cacophonous riff finished this last song and the crowd exploded with applause and cheering.
Myself and my companions shuffled out of the venue dumbfounded at how good a show can get. Upon leaving we had again, the usual crowd hassle and were stuck in huge amounts of people with the same feelings we had about the gig, WOW!
Muse would have to be one of the most professional and proficient live acts I’ve ever seen. If we’re lucky enough to have them tour again in the future I’d highly suggest going along and seeing them.
by: Fazz
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