Amused

Muse’s latest album Simulation Theory hits ‘80s references, both visual and musical, pretty hard. The tour hits on those references even harder. The show was so technically sophisticated that it wasn’t as much a nostalgic look back at the ‘80s from today, but a look back at that decade from years in the future, when technology really becomes otherworldly.

Visually, the show looked like an ‘80s cartoon lunchbox mixed with Stranger Things and Tron. Musically, it was passionate and rebellious. It was all lasers, neon, guitars and synths to hell and back. Opening with “Algorithm,” Matt Bellamy appeared wearing sunglasses shining hot pink lights. For “Pressure,” backup dancers continued the sartorial theme, wearing outfits that lit up with constantly shifting displays and colors like electronic highway billboards, playing (or pretending to play) trombone. The dancers were fun, showing up again spraying smoke on the crowd for “Propaganda” and surrounding Bellamy like a virus for “Thought Contagion.”

The show was inventive with its technology, altering live video of Muse performing with filters that were trippy and disorienting. For “Madness,” Bellamy wore sunglasses that spelled out key words of the song’s lyrics. There were multiple montages of futuristic metal skeletons and other apocalyptic images, but the show did have a sense of humor. As a spaceship-like lighting rig cast a glow down on stage, the band played a few notes on guitar from the music to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Bellamy “talked” to the audience by making his guitar squawk these voice-like sounds.

The show was loud and driving, but I could have used a little more piano. For the one relatively quiet moment, Muse gathered at the front of the catwalk to perform “Dig Down” while the dancers, dressed in Gospel-singer choir stoles, floated in the background. There were columns of light shooting up to the ceiling, which gave the stage a neat effect of being dug down into the earth.

The highlight was my favorite Muse song, “Take a Bow.” The song is a blistering indictment of our political leaders, as relevant now as it was in 2006. As Bellamy started singing, he was addressing the song to a metallic skull (“Alas, poor Yorick”) that he held in his hand. On the video screen, the skull burst into flame, which gave me chills. The song’s rage spiraled up and up and its power grew and grew, and it was one of those disorienting moments in a concert where afterwards, you wonder, “What did I just watch?”

The more metal section of the show was a medley of “Stockholm Syndrome,” “Assassin,” “Reapers,” “The Handler” and “New Born.” For this, a giant inflatable skeleton wearing a virtual reality helmet emerged from the stage and clawed at the band, its jaw flapping hungrily. After all the video-based effects, it was shocking to see something so tangible on stage. It was also gloriously, completely ridiculous, like something from an Iron Maiden show.

Then Muse played the driving “Knights of Cydonia.” Everyone screamed “No one’s gonna take me aliiiiiive,” the dancers threw black and white beach balls into the crowd to bat around, and we all went home amused.