chrissie0902

Whatever your perception of Muse, until you’ve seen them live you ain’t seen nothing. And if you were in town last weekend, consider yourself a music lover, and didn’t get your ass along to Chek Lap Kok for this show, you really have to ask yourself: just what would motivate you into action?

The Devon trio first took Hong Kong by storm in March 2007, when they played one of the smaller side halls at AsiaWorld in support of their superb Black Holes and Revelations album. And while few would have had complaints about that performance, their return was bigger and better in every way.

Taking the stage to a thunderous welcome from the 10,000+ crowd at the AsiaWorld-Arena, Muse kicked things off in spectacular fashion with the glam-rock-infused Uprising from their latest album, The Resistance. The chorus of ‘They will not control us, we will be victorious’ obviously struck a chord with the Hong Kong faithful, and the standing section bounced and moshed with more anarchic abandon than this big shed ordinarily sees.

From here, Messrs Bellamy, Wolstenholme and Howard enveloped the venue with their distinctive brand of space rock for close to two hours, migrating from proggy to hard-rocking to full on anthemic as they delivered a set that drew from all five of their studio albums backed by at-times incredible visual effects. Huge smoke machines, enormous confetti-filled balloons, futuristic graphics, photo montages (including one featuring Barack Obama shaking hands with Hu Jintao) and perhaps the best laser show I’ve ever seen (sorry Symphony of Lights, I faked those oohs) all played their part in keeping the audience as visually rapt as they were aurally.

After briefly leaving the stage, the triumphant triumvirate returned for a three-song encore culminating in an epic rendition of Knights of Cydonia that left no arm unraised and no head unbanged. If there’s a better gig on this scale in 2010, we’ll have had a very good year. Paul Kay

Set List

Uprising
Supermassive Black Hole
Map of the Problematique
Resistance
Hysteria
Guiding Light
Stockholm Syndrome
Nishe
United States of Eurasia
Sunburn
(Drum & bass jam)
Undisclosed Desires
Dead Star
Starlight
Time Is Running Out
Unnatural Selection

(Encore)
Exogenesis Part 1
Plug in Baby
Knights of Cydonia