  Muse lead singer Matthew Bellamy performs Monday night at Rexall Place. (AMBER BRACKEN/Edmonton Sun) |
All the commercials they ran leading up to Monday night’s Muse concert began with the ridiculously tall boast, “They have been called the best live band in the world!”
To which many no doubt responded, “Who the hell is Muse?”
To answer: Muse is a British art rock band mined from the grand tradition of British art rock bands; who write operatic, ultra-dramatic songs of rebellion, societal decay and astronomical phenomena; whose biggest hit sounds like a mash-up of White Wedding, Pink Floyd and the theme from Doctor Who; and whose second biggest hit was featured in the soundtrack to Twilight, hence the big “buzz.” Happy to clear it up.
Now if Muse is indeed the best live band in the world, don’t you think they at least would’ve sold out Rexall Place?
Attendance fell a bit short last night. (Loads of commercials advertising good seats still available for a show a week out is a sure sign the concert is not selling as well as promoters had hoped.)
Besides, a “live” band shouldn’t really have backup vocals and an orchestra when you can‘t see anybody singing backup vocals or an orchestra on stage, but that’s just me. Certainly this is not a hard and fast rule anymore. Smoke and mirrors are expected these days.
Never mind. More than 10,000 hip young fans turned up to catch the Muse spectacle. This was larger than rock, bigger than life. It added up to a stirring, if predictable and ultimately tedious barrage of hard-rocking, melodic, faux-classical bombast that plundered every British prog-rock group you’d care to name. Here was a bit of Floyd, more than a bit, actually.
There was Genesis, a smattering of King Crimson, a scintilla of Yes. Emerson Lake and Palmer reared their pretentious heads, as did the Moody Blues. Supertramp, too, with the harmonica solo in the encore.
Even Radiohead was evoked, just to stay current. I could go on, and they did. Muse has managed to write some beautiful, powerful tunes, but a little goes a long way. Small doses are better.
Competing for the sheer over-the-topness of the music were some stunning visual effects. The opening featured the aforementioned biggest hit, Uprising, followed by the thematically similar Resistance, which saw each of the three band members — singer Matthew Bellamy, bassist Christopher Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard — perched atop pillars made of video screens.
Back down to earth and rocking a bit harder than your usual prog bands, Muse launched into New Born, accompanied by Star Wars-level array of green lasers. Later came a grand piano on a rising pillar as Bellamy crooned United States of Eurasia, the song’s sudden, explosive crescendo borrowed straight from Queen.
Other melodies in the music of Muse were obviously filched from Mozart and Beethoven, or at least some grandiose James Horner movie soundtrack. Not bad for a guy who claims not to be able to read music, eh?
Bellamy has also been compared to Freddie Mercury mainly because there aren’t a lot of rock singers who can do that operatic rock thing, but the Muse singer’s range — both emotion and pitch —is far more limited. It generally stayed way up in the stratosphere, wailing, howling, overblown, overdone, ridiculous.
Just like this entire show.
Opening act the Silversun Pickups probably gets compared to the Smashing Pumpkins a lot because singer Brian Aubert sings an awful lot like Billy Corgan.
He has the sort of soft, sensitive, reedy alto that makes grunge girls melt, while holding in reserve a passionate wail as the antidote to potential lameness.
Here the Pumpkins comparison ends. Silversun Pickups creates dramatic, jangly, minor-key fare — with an untypical bloopy old synth on top. By God, it’s good to hear keyboards in rock ’n’ roll again.
Also, all the junk on Aubert’s guitar was a special effect all its own. Nice touch leaving the thing howling on the stage at the end.
Never seen that before! Anyway, both the energy and familiar hits like Panic Switch were enough to earn these guys an enthusiastic response from the crowd, though no one would ever accuse them of being “art rock.” It’s a British thing, really.
Main Event
Muse
In the Seats
10,500 in Rexall Place
Note Perfect
Overblown, ridiculously over-the-top cross-section of all the British art rock ever made.
