It’s not really fair or appropriate to judge Muse’s latest entry into its lore of live shows as a concert.
Sure, the Drones tour’s stop at the Staples Center last Saturday, December 19th, fit the same general criteria that former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart used to define pornography. You knew it was a rock concert when you saw Matthew Bellamy wailing away with his axe and his voice, Chris Wolstenholme banging on his bass, Dominic Howard haranguing his drums and enough flashing lights and blaring speakers to send the entire sprawl of Los Angeles into shock and awe.
If you went to this shindig on the Saturday before Christmas wanting, expecting and accepting only a rock concert and all the raw energy that entails, you might’ve come away disappointed. Through that lens, the hovering drones, real-time projection mapping and flashing beams of light might’ve distracted from the music.
But when absorbed as a 21st century technological rock opera presented in the round, Muse’s ongoing tour becomes a masterpiece of sensory spectacle. That makes evaluating it in a conventional way—by breaking it down into its constituent parts—a difficult task, if not a futile one.
Still, the trio from Teignmouth gets high marks across the board for thrusting its resources into one of the most breathtaking, mind-blowing and imaginative light-and-sound experiences to ever fill arenas.
Song Selection: 8/10
If you like Muse’s most recent album, you’ll appreciate the band’s updated setlist. Bellamy and his buddies went heavy on “Drones” material—from the heavy energy of “Psycho” and the robot rock of “Dead Inside” to start, to the grinding metal of “The Handler” and face-melting arpeggios of “Reapers,” to the Queen-like journey through “The Globalist” and the pleas of forgiveness in “Mercy.” The show’s entire narrative was fashioned around the album’s themes (or vice versa), so it only figures Drones the record would have a deep footprint within Drones the live experience.
There was plenty to tickle the diehards and long-time followers too, though. The band hearkened back to its pre-industrial days with the head-banging of “Hysteria” and the technological teenage angst of “Plug-In Baby” early on, and later with the soul of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” and the driving desperation of “Time is Running Out.” The boys spent plenty of time pleasing the other segments of its crowd: the romantics with “Starlight,” “Undisclosed Desires” and “Madness”; the metalheads with “Supermassive Black Hole” and “Knights of Cydonia” and the idealists and wannabe revolutionaries with “Resistance” and “Uprising.”
Still, it was all about Drones — the intro, the outro and everything that you could see and hear in between.
Song Quality: 8.5/10
Muse tends to stick to the studio script, with some flourishes and occasional minor flubs. More often than not, the way Bellamy plays with his voice and his guitar adds bravery to the bombast that marks his band’s songs. He may miss a note here or there, but more as the byproduct of exploration and envelope-pushing than standard error.
And, as always, Muse’s interludes offered a glimpse behind the curtain into the band’s influences and wider roots. There were nods to AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses, Jimi Hendrix and Ennio Morricone, all offered up like old toys at “Show and Tell.”
Sound Quality: 9/10
The Staples Center may not have the finest acoustics in town, but it does have room for some of the biggest. And Muse certainly knows how to use that space to bring its arena rock to life. Sounds ethereal and earthly, seductive and pseudo-Satanic, smooth and crunchy came through with equal clarity.
There’s only so much a venue as massive as Staples can do to channel the band’s heavier vibes through the feet and hearts of the fans in the stands and on the floor. All told, though, every trill and arpeggiated scale lit up the airwaves with crisp force.
Stage Presence: 7.5/10
This is one of the spots where a proper evaluation gets tricky. Since arriving as an arena-and-stadium act, Muse has become somewhat detached from its audience. There’s still a measure of interaction with the crowd, but nothing particularly spontaneous or personal.
Not that any of this keeps Bellamy from commanding the attention of ticketholders. The stage itself, with its slow spin and hammerhead shape, was designed to bring the bandmates closer to the fans.
“It’s quite narrow,” said Oli Metcalfe, the band’s production designer on its last two tours, per Gigwise, “but more importantly for the audience it’s low, so the band will be playing in an intimate space, and have a good relationship in terms of distance from their audience.”
There’s only so much any human, even one as gifted in performance and stagecraft as Bellamy, can do to distract from the sorts of bells and whistles Muse had on display. Some of the graphics drew eyeballs to and were fashioned around the players themselves, so it’s not as though anyone forgot who was on stage.
Lights and Visuals: 10/10
It’s here from which “Drones” drew its greatest strength. The lengths to which the band’s technical staff, led by Metcalfe tour director Glen Rowe, went to incorporate and exploit modern technology on, around and above the stage would’ve made Inspector Gadget blush.
“It’s our version of The Wall, basically,” Bellamy told BBC Radio 2 (h/t Gigwise).
Like Roger Waters’ stadium tour, Muse’s roadshow was more high theatrical art than mere rock recital. The band introduced its drones—inflated spheroids adorned with lights and guided by computer software—from the get-go and used them to genius effect throughout. During “Supermassive Black Hole,” the drones assumed different colors and orbits while revolving around the stage, in conjunction with a video of celestial objects getting “sucked into a supermassive.” At times, they filed into ruler-straight lines, like soldiers in training. At others, they danced through the air, channeling their inner Tinker Bell.
And as Wolstenholme screamed of all the people “killed by the drones” at the end of “Reapers,” a black airship vaguely resembling the Starship Enterprise soared above the stands, amidst flashes of red and white light.
The next-most eye-popping effects: the projection mapping that turned the bandmembers into marionettes and their shadows into towers of criss-crossing photons.
The same screens that caught those interactive images also served as stable surfaces for the more narrative elements of the spectacle. Motifs of menacing androids made multiple appearances. Muse’s “Globalist” laments of there being “no countries left” was reflected in a post-apocalyptic cityscape of foggy devastation.
Even some of the more conventional visual elements were twisted to fit the themes. Where most bands would’ve dropped unremarkably shaped confetti onto the crowd, Muse took the opportunity to douse its attendees in humanoid-shaped cutouts.
If ever a rock show went to 11 with its visuals, this was it.
The Crowd: 7/10
Again, the context of Muse’s show as an operatic production rather than a primarily sonic experience complicates things.
A lack of jumping and moshing wasn’t reflective of any apathy among those in attendance. The fans’ full throats were brought to bear more and more as the night went along. On a handful of tracks, including ballads like “Starlight,” the audience took its turn carrying the tune while Bellamy gave his pipes a well-earned respite.
More physical activity would’ve been fun, but tightly-controlled venues like Staples Center don’t offer as much freedom to freak out.
Not that there weren’t those in the audience who managed to partake in other forms of resistance, physical or chemical.
Fit With Venue: 9.5/10
That being said, a space that was any bit smaller or less tricked-out with technology than Staples Center wouldn’t have been able to properly handle all that “Drones” entailed.
The lights. The drones. The tones. The players and images. The interior of Staples Center afforded them all plenty of room to roam and expanses to explore.
And with so many fervent fans in the Los Angeles area, it wouldn’t have been fair for Muse, in all of its prog-rock glory, to settle for anything less than a 20,000-seat saucer that looks like it could soar out of L.A. Live at any moment.
Extras: +3
As mentioned earlier, Muse’s playful interludes have long been staples of the band’s live experience. That was certainly true at Staples Center on Saturday.
The same went for the giant translucent popping beach balls, the explosions of streamers and the people-shaped confetti. Like Emeril Lagasse, Bellamy and company continued to kick it up a notch while staying true to the vision of Muse as much more than a touring rock band.
Total: (59.5+3)/70 = 62.5/70
[Photo via PetitionBuzz]