Muse: Echo Arena: Liverpool: 5 November ‘09

Call me pathetic, call me what you will, but Muse are a rock band with a capital R!

I often get asked why I play Muse when I’m on the decks of death (dj) and my answer is always the one above, yet I still understand why some people don’t get it… Until that is they see the band live and it become really obvious, comparisons are futile for this band. However, I will say that to me they are akin to making me feel this is how Queen would have sounded as a three piece without Freddie and with Brian May on vocals, and if you listen to the Queen albums and the tracks with just Brian/Roger on vocals, you may get my drift…

I digress however. It’s been quite some time since Muse played Liverpool, too long in fact and I have not seen them since they hit the theatre trail sized venues a few years back (Apollo, Manchester!). What always struck me was that they had the songs, the dynamics, they certainly had the ability but they were somehow lacking in the visual department, even the Wembley shows were ‘nearly there.’ Tonight however that changes forever…

The Echo arena is placed in darkness while three pillars of screens with emote men walking upstairs, then boom, ‘Uprising’ starts, the pillers split and you have one top bank of screens, one bottom bank of screens and in the middle (yes, the f****n’ middle) Muse. It’s so spectacular it’s like a scene out of close encounters of the third kind, but live in front of you. The sound is booming, it fills every corner of this arena, but it’s also deep, it’s certainly shaking the room, yet, most importantly, it’s crystal clear, the best sound I have heard in an arena for decades!

The crowd is also on fire. Tonight is the first time I have been to a show at the Echo arena with the standing area, err standing! It changes the whole feeling and vibe of the event and the noise level is just incredible, thousands of unison hands clap in time with the song, all you need is radio ga-ga…

So onwards and upwards the band stride on, each song met with a wave of emotion from the crowd, in fact it’s the new songs that are getting the best responce, almost as if the band and it’s audience have come of age at once. By the tme they hit their third song, the pillers have lowered and they are on a ‘normal’ stage… However, that normallity is still so far removed from anything you may have seen before, the lighting positions masked with the circular feel of the stage emit a presence that is diffcult to explain, yet impossible not to embrace. The piano comes out and Matt plays a couple of amazing songs seated at it; it’s raised up and back down. We get an interlude of just drums and bass (Both Dom/Chris tonight are simply outstanding) as they play ‘Cave’ from the first album and I still remember seeing them on that tour, but could never have imagined them ending up here… It’s testament to them that all the songs they play tonight fit like a glove, there is no past, a future, just present and three men in a band as one…

They end the set with a killer three way of ‘Starlight’, ‘Time Is Running Out’ and ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and the combination of passion, visual and delivery is one to be taken back from, and there they are… gone…

Returning to end the night with ‘Plug In Baby’ and a quite awe inspiring ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ (complete with Chris harmonica intro). Muse end the night with an almost bigger bang than they started it, nearly two hours of the most incredible rock that you may ever hear, I don’t know how they can better this or take it somewhere else, but that’s not a question right now, just an observation, yet the answer is simply stunning… Muse are the best british rock band in the world right now.

The sheer sonic construction for destruction is evident, the dynamics of the band finally meeting the production values they craved for so many years, how many bands from the past wished that they had this technology in their prime. I can think of so many great acts (Zeppelin/Queen) that would have be off the richter scale had they had the modern screen and computer laser lighting that is on show tonight, but in some ways Muse are now better than those bands! Yes better, for they can just be three guys playing and still amaze (they did before) and when you throw in the modern way and add it to what they do, they simply become one of the greatest rock bands ever; they surpass U2 for sheer weight of technology compiled with great songs. I saw Green Day just over a week before this and I tell you, modern rock concerts are just more incredible than ever, don’t let people tell you that you ‘Should have seen bands back in the day’ they are full of shit… The 21st Century is the best time ever to be seeing bands like this, I saw all the greats, but this last two weeks both Green Day and Muse surpassed them all… These are the worst of times, but they are also the best of times…

There can be no one who is not impresssed with this show and if any critics say different, tell them JJ said ‘F**k Off.’