Muse at the United Center

Last night, Muse came to The United Center in Chicago on their 2nd Law Tour (I guess it's called).  I'll give a brief review on the 2nd Law album:

It's pretty good.  Not as good as their other albums but still pretty damn good.

Now that I got that out of the way, the concert.

Dead Sara opened up for Muse.  I'm not too familiar with Dead Sara's music and neither was anybody else, it seemed.  In between songs, it got dead silent.  I was back in the seats but my friend in general admission said that it was quiet enough that the singer from Dead Sara decided to have conversations with the people in the crowd.  Pretty funny that a mostly full United Center could get that quiet while anyone was playing a rock concert.

Overall, Dead Sara was actually very good.  A couple of weeks before the show, I checked out a couple of their music videos and wasn't particularly impressed.  The recordings were fine but lacked energy, so they were okay.  However, Dead Sara is a completely different band live.  They play with a ton of energy and, boy, do their songs come to life!  I was pretty impressed.

For those of you who don't know who Dead Sara is, they're basically an alternative metal version of Paramore.

Well, enough about Dead Sara, let's talk about Muse.  Muse basically met my high and hyped up expectations, which is pretty impressive.  This was my first Muse show and my friends who had seen Muse before (one of them five times now), would rave about Muse's live show.

They did not disappoint.

The show started with the song "2nd Law:  Unsustainable"  This wasn't preferable for me on the account that this song is my least favorite Muse song but, it still made for a pretty cool opener.  They followed it with "Supremacy" which sounded pretty good.  From there, it gets pretty blurry as to what came in what order so instead of trying to keep things chronologically straight, I'll just start talking about it.

"Panic Station" sounded pretty good.  This was about what I expected.

"Supermassive Blackhole" sounded pretty amazing.  A very energetic song.

They played "Resistance" which sounds just phenomenal.  This song sounded very passionate.  Especially vocally, Matt Bellamy is allowed to really showcase the singing that he's best at.  They also added an outro onto "Resistance" which was "The Star Spangled Banner."  It certainly wasn't the best version of our national anthem but, considering that Muse is British, I think I can cut them a little slack.

Muse used "The Star Spangled Banner" as a kind of interlude into "Hysteria" which was pretty awesome.  Of course, not surprisingly, "Hysteria" sounded amazing.  Definitely one of the most energetic songs of the night.

"Explorers" came surprisingly early in the set.  It sounded great but, considering that it was the only slow song that they played, it should have come more towards the end of the set.

"Follow Me" sounded awesome.  Most notable about "Follow Me" was the laser show.  The laser show was very cool and impressive.

"Knights of Cydonia" was played with a ton of energy.  Of course, they did the "Man with a Harmonica" intro which is famous amongst Muse fans.  Sounded great.  I can't say for sure or not but I think Wolstenholme threw the harmonica into the crowd when he was done with it.

"Starlight" sounded great, as expected of course.

"Stockholm Syndrome" lived up to its expectations.  That song was more hyped by my friends than any other Muse song.  I'm glad that they played it for this tour.

To appease the die-hard fans, Muse played "Sunburn" for what Matt said would be the last time in Chicago.  This isn't surprising by any means since they have so many albums and want to play more of the newer stuff.  It sounded great though.  It's a shame that they would completely stop playing it.

Chris Wolstenholme came down the runway to sing "Liquid State."  Sounded a lot like the recording.  It was very well done.

"Undisclosed Desires" was pretty cool.  Definitely enjoyable.

They also played "Animals."  Not my favorite song but they put it right after "Hysteria" in their set.  All the momentum that "Hysteria" had built up was completely wasted by having "Animals" after it.  Let's just say that I would have ordered it a little differently...

"Madness" was actually, surprisingly, unmemorable.  In fact, it was so overshadowed that I almost forgot to mention it.  The only memorable part about it was Matt's singing towards the end.  It sounded just like the album.

The recording of "2nd Law:  Isolated System" was played while the band was surrounded by a pyramid of television screens playing back footage of a woman running and, inevitably, getting swallowed up by a giant sandstorm.  It was cool but I felt it was kind of a long time to technically have the band on the stage but not have them playing anything.

Muse closed with "Survival."  Before starting the song, Bellamy said that the song was about the Blackhawks (since the Blackhawks are currently on a historical start of 19-0-3) which made the crowd go nuts.  It was a good end to a great show.  You really couldn't ask for more.  The show was a little over two hours long.


Other Notes:

Muse's lighting effects and the like were pretty awesome.  They definitely lived up to the hype.  The only thing I would have changed was the jets they had shooting smoke in front of the stage.  Every time they shot the smoke in front of the stage, all I could think was that it would look cooler with fire.  The smoke was still cool though.

Chris Wolstenholme had lights for fret markers on his basses.  That, I thought, was pretty damn cool.  I had definitely not seen anything quite like that before.

During one of the songs, (I don't remember which one) Matt decided to start shaking hands with people in general admission.  That was pretty cool of him.  A lot of musicians as famous as Matt Bellamy would be afraid to do that.

There were two platforms at either side of the stage that Matt and Chris used effectively to bring themselves closer to the fans in the stands.  

Muse is truly a talented group.  Dominic's drumming is clean and tricky, Chris' bass playing great, and, of course, Matt's piano playing, guitar playing, and singing were all extraordinary.  Matt's singing sounds better than just about any pop artist live (including the ones that lip sync).  He is definitely one talented man.