This past week I was lucky enough to get to see Muse in concert... again. It was my third time seeing them, and at first, I was thinking, ah, do I really need to go this time? But my daughter has turned into quite the fan and begged for us to get tickets. So I thought, whatever, create the memories!
Well, after waiting nearly an hour to be let in the arena, and then another hour before the opening band started, and then yet another hour of hearing them play and waiting for the stage to change, I was beginning to wonder was I glad to be there?
As soon as Muse hit that first note, let me tell you, I was glad to be there! Oh my word, these guys are good! The energy is over the top awesome, their songs are incredible, their talent is amazing! All of it. So so good.
However, I do have to say, you must like loud to enjoy this show. And lost of visual stimulation. It's crazy loud! Like pretty much the loudest thing you'll ever hear. I wish could describe the loudness. There's no way. So if loud scares you, be warned of the Muse concert!
I took our new camera and had fun trying to take pictures and videos. We were sitting way to the side, so we got some pretty interesting perspectives. However, Muse's shows are so full of lasers and lights that in sitting so far to the side we lost some of the effect of that. But in choosing between the laser light show and getting a good glimpse of the guys themselves, I think I choose the guys. How about you?
So anyway, here's some of my favorite pictures we ended up with.
Matt singing Supremacy
The first pumping, head banging crowd
Chris, the most awesome bass player EVER!
I'm in awe of him.
Chris singing his own song, Liquid State.
With the crowd in the background
Love that shot!
And Dom with the sweat just rolling off him!
We tried to make a montage video, but YouTube already blocked it, so here are a few single songs that took and uploaded.
This was the opening number and then it went straight into Supermassive and the crowd went wild!
This one gives me chills and then when it goes into Chris on the bass for Hysteria... there are no words.
One of my favorite new songs is Follow Me, and then also you can get a glimpse here of Chris singing one of his new songs... this album is the first time he's had a couple of his own songs. So cool.
Well, it gives you some idea any way, but definitely not how loud it was! :)
It's summer. Somehow that means lots and lots of watching stuff. I thought maybe I'd report on it now and then and perhaps you have comments to add and we can talk?
MOVIES WATCHED:
The Vow: Did you know this movie about a couple that get in a car accident and the wife loses her memory is based on a true story? Yep, it said so right there on the movie! I thought the movie was... okay.... it wasn't as tear jerky as I thought it would be, and I didn't seem to have as much anxiety over the situation as I thought I would. Weird... maybe just not in the mood? I don't know. But it was good and makes you really appreciate how important our memories are.
Tower Heist: Well, there were some pretty funny parts of this caper movie. I loved all the big names... especially Alan Alda.... what a dude. But there was a lot of body part jokes, which I just don't get. Is it supposed to be funny? So yeah... it was another just okay movie.
WarGames: We needed to make the kids watch this one because we are currently reading Ready Player One together.. some of us... and it's important to know about WarGames for further understanding of the book. So wow, how fun to go back in time to this movie! What a stinkin' cutie Matthew Broderick is in this movie!!! Such a great movie... still. I loved re-visiting it.
Sadly, I haven't watched, like, a REAL movie in the theater for quite some time... since The Avengers almost two months ago now. Wow. Seriously looking forward to the new Batman though.
CDs BOUGHT:
Gotye: Making Mirrors: Finally! I've been threatening this one for awhile! Yay! Cool stuff.. espeically the songs toward the end of the CD.... here's one of my soon to be favorites:
I'm still really wanting the first CD this dude made, but can't find it yet. It has this song on it:
Sigur Ros: Valtari : A very different sound... and one that I quite like for calming purposes! They all sound the same to me though. But cool though, very cool. And calming!
James Durbin: Memories of a Beautiful Disaster: I've wanted this one for awhile too... very rock and roll-ish. Some I like better than others. But I'm still a fan of his mellow stuff. More mellow please! But the song Stand Up is one of my favorites on this album.
Silversun Pickups: Neck of the Woods: Still getting familiar with this album, but I mostly like the very first track called Skin Graphs.
And did you hear that Muse has a new album coming out in September? Here's the cool trailer:
Ah... pretty excited guys.
PLAYS:
The Million Dollar Quartet: Awesome show about an event that happened in December of 1956 when four famous musicians all sort of accidentally ended up in the recording studio together and decided to jam for awhile. The boss decided to flip the switch and record them of course... so this show recreates the whole thing. The four guys: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Awesome show! The guys were so spot on, and all played their instruments for real.
The Wizard of Oz: Really cute show that our local outdoor theater is currently showing. Very cute! They did a great job, but they needed to sing louder!
So...seen or heard any of this stuff? What do you think? What things HAVE you seen or heard lately that you think I need to know about?
For all my Muse fan friends, have you heard this one? I can't seem to get enough of it. The bass bit? Ah, awesome! I just wish this clip showed more Chris pictures, you know? (Someone on YouTube thought the same thing, so they made a Chris Clip video, but no embedding allowed, so if you want to see what I'm talking about, check it out here.)
The following post was written over a year ago for a guest post... then I bagged it and did something different, but I saved this post for a rainy day. And that day is today! So here you have my feelings on Muse, written a long long time ago... but with updated comments in brackets.
About three years ago when I was first in my Twilight craze, I noticed that Stephenie Meyer thanked a band called Muse in her books. She even went so far as to say that they totally inspired her and that she wouldn't have been able to write without them. She says in New Moon: " And, finally, thank you to the talented musicians who inspire me, particularly the band Muse - there are emotions, scenes, and plot threads in this novel that were born from Muse songs and would not exist without their genius." And in Eclipse: " I am in your debt, rock gods of Muse, for yet another inspiring album. Thank you for continuing to create my favorite writing music." And also in Breaking Dawn, which was even dedicated to Muse. "And thanks also to my favourite band, the very aptly named Muse, for providing a saga's worth of inspiration."
So of course I had to look up this band that I'd never heard of, to see what all her fuss was about. At first, I thought, ... hmmmm.. they are just plain weird. But the more I listened, the more I loved. Soon, my teenagers were also totally into them, and we found ourselves blasting them constantly. [Though now they are bugged by the whole Stephenie Meyer thing and figure those that came to love Muse because of her are not real fans. Whatever.] Then we found out they were coming in concert just down the street from our house so of coure, I got tickets! Wow, what an experience that was. First we had to suffer through a couple hours of awful opening bands, then lots and lots of waiting, but when Muse finally took the stage and opened with one of the very best songs, Knights of Cydonia, it was all worth it. I felt a little weird being an old mom in the midst of tons of rocking out teenagers, but if you looked closely, there were lots of other moms there too! One of the things people say the most about Muse is their amazing live shows, and somehow I've been lucky enough to experience this.
Here's a video of them opening their concert at Wembely Stadium with Knights of Cydonia:
It was about the time of this concert (Sept. 2007) that I decided my favorite song of theirs was Supermassive Black Hole. Such an intense song. To see them play it live at that concert was amazing! Then when the Twilight movie came out a year later, guess which Muse song was featured during the famous baseball game? Supermassive Black Hole!
Now, just this month,[which was fall of 2009 I think] Muse has finally come out with a new album called Resistance. The single, Uprising, is fast making the rounds. Also, I just found out that one of these new songs called I Belong to You, will be re-worked for the New Moon soundtrack. Turns out again that it's one of my favorites on this new album, though in their words, they think it's the weirdest track of the album.
Muse is a group of three British guys, led by Matt Ballamy who does most (maybe even all?) the song writing. His background is classical piano, which you can hear sprinkled throughout many of their songs. Most of their songs are upbeat, politically charged alternative rock, head banging type stuff. But then they really know how to slow it down to very beautiful ballads and soft piano tunes. They've put out five albums now. Some of my favorite songs, not mentioned above, are Hysteria (with some smokin' hot bass playing!), Time is Running Out (this is the one my son and his band have learned and they do a pretty good job too!) Unintended (slow and beautiful, but weird, weird video), Map of the Problematique (haunting lyrics), and Butterflies and Hurricanes(a taste of Matt's classical piano talent which comes halfway through the song.) Ah, I could go on and on, there's so many good ones.
Thank you to Stephenie Myer for pointing these guys out in her books, and adding to my ever growing list of favorite musicians.
I've since seen them in concert again, and it was just as fun the second time around. They really are awesome.
I'm going to take this very very literally, and give you some examples of music that I seriously can't sit still to.
First up is DJ Tiesto... he plays a computer, yes? And his concerts look like they would rival Muse's in the way of visual stimulation. This song is his remake of He's a Pirate from The Pirates of the Carribbean soundtrack. My favorite part comes at about 2:08 minutes in:
I Just Can't Get Enough!!! If you've been reading lately you know that I'm in the middle of rediscovering Depeche Mode. I can't believe I didn't love them more in the 80's.
Bad Romance, Glee Version... come on, you know you want to get up and dance to this!
Of course, there must be some Muse in my toe tapping (or should we say head banging) post. This one you'll have to wait for a bit till the toe tapping part starts, but that's okay, because you'll be treated to Chris's awesome harmonica intro! Love. This. Song.
Of course, once again, I could go on and on, so I'll just stop here. Let me know if you listened to any of these songs and found yourself literally tapping your toe and wanting to dance.
Happy Saturday to you all. Now I'm going to go pretend it's last week, and read all day! :)
Monday night we saw Muse in concert. Muse, if you've never heard of them, is a three man alternative band from England. They have amazing guitar skills, song writing skills, piano playing skills, and drumming skills. In fact, they are really really amazing all around, if you are into the alternative rock thing.
So, we went to the concert on Monday. And unfortunately, I have yet another sad story to tell about my experience there! I know! How can this happen to BOTH of my concerts that I've been so looking forward to for so long!
So this is what happened. First, Mr. Stuey got stuck at work and so we left without him and he came later on his own. That was a bummer. But we could deal with it. He had no desire to see the opening band anyway.
When we got there, we HAD to let Moder (15 year old fanatic fan son) buy a t-shirt. So we suffered through the t-shirt buying mosh pit of sorts, and I had to remind myself to breathe in the claustrophic inducing crowd. But the happiness of said 15 year old son after the black Resistance t-shirt was in hand was worth it.
Then we made our way to our seats. Moder had seats with his friends in a different section, so I got him there and situated. Then I went to find our four seats (besides me and The Mr. who was coming later, I had with me JJ and Toto) and as I was approaching I could tell that two of our seats were being sat in already. So I said, "Um, you're in our seats." And of course we then compared tickets only to discover that they matched! So we, all together, went to guest services. They took the tickets to make copies, and told us to either wait on the floor (so we could watch the opening band which had started by this time) or wait by our seats. We choose the seats.
So we had two seats and three people at this point. Toto sat on my lap as we suffered through the opening band. I have no idea who they were. They had a few okay songs, but also some quite grating songs. And filthy mouths. I hate that. Dudes, really. It's not cool. Besides, I couldn't concentrate for worrying about the seat situation.
Meanwhile, Mr. Stuey is out stuck in traffic. Trying to get parked. And I'm texting him that we have seat problems. He was gearing up for the fight!
They came back with our tickets just about the time the opening band ended. My husband finally arrives. And he proceeds to yell, not nicely, to the dude, who says. "Sorry, you can go on the floor if you want." The Mr. says, "NO WAY." But meaner. And so we say, we'll all just stand here by our two seats. (I knew that Muse is a standing concert if you know what I mean. No one would be sitting anyway.)
Oh, man. We were mad! Finally, some other lady came and said "We'll refund your money, you can't all stand here, and come with me and we'll find you seats." So he and JJ went off with her. They ended up in okay seats and were somewhat calming down by then.
Luckily, all that was figured out just as the concert started. So Toto and I just tried to forget the stress and enjoy the concert.
AND the concert itself was fabulous! Loud! Crazy! Rocking! I loved it. I love their songs. I sang to pretty much everyone of them. There was only two I didn't really know. I screamed for encores. I crossed my fingers they wouldn't forget to sing Knights of Cydonia... and they didn't... forget I mean! It was great.
Afterwards, when we all meet up again, and I saw the look on my son's and his friends faces, it was all worth it. They had completely lost their voices and were so pumped and excited. It was very fun to see that.
We then proceeded to walk to our cars and drive home in a complete blizzard! I couldn't believe it, but we survived and made it home without incident, ears numb and ringing the whole way!
Anyway, in the end, the managers from the event place called us to get the whole seat fiasco story. It turns out they double sold about 30 seats in that section. Those who ended up with the seats were pretty much whoever got there first. My husband was demanding a refund on at least the two of our seats, which that one lady had told him would happen. Now they were saying they couldn't. Anyway, as it turns out, they are giving us four tickets to another event to say "sorry". We've chosen to go to Cirque de Soleil in May. I guess we'll see how THAT one all turns out then.
So, how's that for a long story? Anybody ever have any similar things happen to them? It was crazy I tell you!
Bottom line: MUSE, you were freakin' awesome! Online ticketing computers and whoever else is the culprit, you sucked!
Whew. Once again, I sure do feel better! :) Maybe I should give the concert going thing a break now, what do you think?
Here's a video someone else took of the concert, when they came back for a second encore and did Knights of Cydonia that I needed to hear so bad. Matt (lead singer) was doing the spotlight and making the crowd crazy, and Chris (bass player) was doing a cool funky harmonica thing before they started the song. Loved it.
** We finished Robin Hood Season Two and I'm going to be going into some serious Robin Hood/ Guy of Gisborne/the-whole-outlaw-gang withdrawals. It may be awhile before we can manage to get our hands on Season Three, so until then.... I'll just have to read about them. What about you, got any feelings one way or the other about Robin Hood?
** This weekend, I WILL finish some books! I've got several that are so so close, so I hope there's time to get some good readin' in. What books will you finish this weekend?
** We're also hoping for a chance to see The Lightning Thief since our attempt on Monday was futile. It was a little bit too popular that day I guess. Seen it? What did you think?
** No big bookish events this weekend, but NEXT weekend.... it's the Utah Book Bloggers Winter Social! Yes, I'm excited. If you are a Utah blogger, will I see you there?
** Let the concert countdown begin! Only six weeks until we get to go see both these concerts:
I'm so excited. It still feels like forever away, but it will be here before we know it! If you could see anyone in concert, who would it be?
** Last night at book club we had a fun discussion on fairy tale books and the original of fairy tales, and just fairy tales in general. I decided they make quite the fascinating subject. What's your favorite fairy tale and/or fairy tale remake book?
