Muse!

My favourite band of the moment were performing here in Berlin on Saturday night and I was lucky enough to see them! Sadly, I am unable to show you any photos of the event as my camera was taken from me by a female security guard whose only English word seemed to be "number" – very confusing. Anyway, upon entering the Treptower Arena there was time for some overly priced beer from a plastic glass before the support band came on stage. The support band were called the ‘Noisettes’ and their name is about half right as most of the ‘music’ they produced can only really be described as ‘noise’. At this point I was positioned in a pretty good spot but was unable to see the support band due to Germans seeming to be on average a bit taller than us Brits or perhaps it’s just the Germans who attended this particular gig?! A better position with fewer tall Germans was found during the long wait (of over an hour) for the main act to arrive on stage after which Muse opened brilliantly with ‘Take a Bow’ and it was well worth the wait!  Unfortunately, due to the multitude of cameras taking photos of the newly arrived Muse, it was a little difficult to see the band during their first song – yes I did say ‘cameras’ – apparently my little camera must have looked like something dangerous to the security guard or maybe she thought she could sell it?! Who knows?! Sadly the German disorganisation of the gig doesn’t stop there as during the second song ‘Starlight’, a few of the Germans who obviously consumed too much from those little plastic glasses during the long wait decided it would be fun to create a scene not dissimilar from the Hillsborough disaster – ok, it wasn’t that bad but it really was pretty scary at one point. Throughout this second song, many people (of whom we were among) could be seen trying to escape to the back of the arena. I just managed to catch a glimpse of the end of ‘Starlight’ where the large screen behind the band showed extremely effective images to give the impression of travelling through a star field.

The gig continued with Muse playing a mixture of their old and new songs. Amongst their older tracks were ‘New Born’, ‘Citizen Erased’, ‘Time Is Running Out’, ‘Bliss’ and ‘Butterflies and Hurricanes’ where Matthew Bellamy performed his fantastic solo on the piano. He also used the piano to great effect while playing ‘Hoodoo’ (a track from their latest album ‘Black Holes and Revelations’) which was full of emotion and a delight to hear live! After having to relocate, I could not see the band very clearly through the cigarette smoke (Germans like smoking a lot) or over the mass of tall people but the three large screens showed many images of the band as well as other complementary visualisations. I was particularly pleased to hear the band play my favourite track from their new album ‘Invincible’ where the screens were used to show images of what seemed to be revolutions at the same time as close up shots of the band including drummer Dominic Howard’s menacing marching rhythm leading into the song. Once more, I am afraid to say that the German audience almost managed to spoil my enjoyment of this song as those in my vicinity decided to order more drinks from the plastic glasses and proceeded to ask everyone around me very loudly what they would like and even thought it would be a good idea to lean in front of me to shout their replies! Having said this, ‘Invincible’ was such an experience to see and hear live and was well worth putting up with the uninterested audience members for.

Towards the end of the concert, Muse played the first single from their new album ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ which was incredible with videos of dancing/marching robots behind them. For the first encore they performed another favourite of mine, ‘Muscle Museum’ followed by ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and at one point several very large balloons were unleashed which happily bounced around the arena (see first two photos below – someone else’s pics of different Muse gigs). Throughout these songs, I was distracted yet again by a German shoving her extremely hot cigarette into my arm and some other Germans having quite a loud argument. However, I forgot all about this when Muse came back on stage to play their final tune which rather predictably and happily was ‘Knights of Cydonia’. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance of this song as I did all the others and despite all the problems that were encountered, I had a great time and came away with a smile on my face! Oh and I did eventually get my camera back by the way!