Muse Gig

On Friday night Jenifer, her brother Josiah and wife Sarah; and I turned up at Acer Arena to rock out to Muse during their Resistance Tour of Australia.

When we heard Josiah and Sarah were coming to Australia we immediately checked out the gig guide to see what we could all enjoy. It was pretty obvious; though Linkin Park was right up there for me Muse was the clear winner for all. Jenifer isn’t into Rock or anything loud, but she is into Twilight. Insert gag emoticon here.

Unbeknownst to Jenifer but ‘benownst to the rest of us, Jenifer’s father was also visiting Australia as a Thanksgiving surprise.  This meant a night out on the town with no kids!

I’d picked up the tickets some months in advance, gold side-view tickets that – judging by the venue map – had us sitting nice and close to the stage. I’ve done the pit, participated in a circle pit, but perhaps my age now dictates how enjoyable comfortable seating is during a concert. You’ve just ‘gotta get close though.

Biffy Clyro were the opening act – a Scottish rock band which in of itself was pretty cool. To make matters touch on the bizarre, perhaps even insane, a bloke about half a dozen seats to our left was going absolutely apes$&% throughout the performance. A performance that we couldn’t see properly, but I’ll get into that shortly. I had to introduce myself to this guy, finding out that he is a die-hard fan and was there to see them; Muse being a bit of a bonus. Fancy that. He travelled from Newcastle and left with a few extra Facebook friends.

When we sat down we didn’t notice until Biffy came out, but we couldn’t see them properly. There were three massive pylons as part of the set, staggered so the first and third were forward and the second was back (see attached image). Biffy were mostly in the area in front of the 2nd pylon, so the third pylon blocked most of our view. Frantically scanning my ticket I couldn’t see anything about impeded view. Essentially I was bummed and felt like I let the others down. The atmosphere was good regardless, but we were going to not get a good look at Muse later on.

The saving grace was the fact that the pylons were massive. Floor to ceiling size and doubled up as projection screens for artistic use and close-up video of the band members. And as the lights went out and a lemming-esque display appeared on the pylons, we couldn’t help but still feel very excited…

BOOM. Suddenly sheet material dropped from the pylons, revealing a section in the middle of each with the band members bashing into Uprising. They were right there. Full view and we were so close. The perfect song to start, Sarah screamed something unintelligible (sorry Sarah) and everyone around us went berserk. Perhaps they had the same reservations I’d been having?

Oh my God I was happy; so thankful. It was going to be an awesome night after all. And it was. A concert for the ages. Laser light shows. Psychedelic graphics and music. Eyeball beach balls falling from the ceiling. All the great Muse tracks.

Quite simply the best concert I’ve been to.

The intro – well worth watching.