Muse/Razorlight – MTVU Campus Invasion Tour
I'm not the biggest Muse fanatic, but I considered Absolution to be one of last year's best albums and I was looking forward to the show this evening. For 10 bucks it seemed like a bargain.

Razorlight opened, played the singles off of Up All Night, and was decent but generally forgettable. Particularly in lieu of what followed.

Muse opened with the one-two punch of "Apocalypse Please" and "Hysteria", and it was fucking ON. It was palpable in the crowd - Muse backhanded us across the face and socked us in the gut, and we loved every second of it. You could hear the crowd even above the maelstrom, and it was lovely. The majority of songs came from Absolution, but not disproportionately, as all the top tracks from Showbiz and Origin Of Symmetry were included too. "Sunburn" was a standout in my opinion, but everyone seemed to have their favorites included in the setlist.

It looked like the three were genuinely surprised at the intensity of the crowd, and Matthew claimed that we were "the best crowd in the United States." Maybe the crowds the last couple nights in Florida were lame, maybe he says that every night, but it certainly went over well.

They brought a pretty sweet LED light setup, and a sound system that seemed to overwhelm the 2500 capacity Tabernacle. Since most of their tour dates in the next couple of months are in 15,000 seat arenas, I'm guessing there wasn't much that could be done. I love a loud show as much as anyone, but the guitars and vocals were mostly lost in the wall of white noise. We enjoyed it anyway. Certainly a quality ending to a day that included getting housed by a six-year-old at Halo 2.
- posted by Liebs @ 9:19 PM