The three-man, Grammy Award winning band, Muse hit the Los Angeles, CA Staples Center for the second of three Los Angeles shows on January 24, 2013. Starting off their 2nd Law World Tour in San Diego and after selling out the 20,000 seated Staples Center on January 23; Muse was bound to put on an amazing, unforgettable show.
After Band of Skulls performed, the anxiety began. Because it was a weekday, Muse were scheduled to go on earlier than normally- at 8:15pm. Smog filled the stage and at 8:20pm, the introduction song, The 2nd Law: Unsustainable, began. The futuristic, robotic and kind of classical like song made for a great entrance. The band made their way on stage before the dub-step chorus of the song began- to the roar from the crowd. Both guitarist/ singer Matt Bellamy and bassist, Christopher Wolstenholme faced drummer, Dominic Howard during the intro; having their backs to the crowd. But that changed during their second song, Supremacy when Bellamy cat walked down to a platform near the barricade, dropped to his knees and head-banged as he shredded on the guitar.
During the band’s fourth song, Panic Station, a large pyramid like lighting structure lowered, with five columns. Throughout the night, each column would constantly move up and down, playing on the screens, different camera angles or showing lyrics. A few songs into the bands 20 song set, Bellamy asked the crowd how they were feeling and thanked them for coming out. They went into a cover of Prince’s Sign O’ the Times and then into Knights of Cydonia with a nice harmonica intro done by Wolstenholme. The Star Spangled Banner was the intro to the bands next song, Time is Running Out and following that, the stage went black except for one spotlight in the middle of a platform. Wolstenholme made his way to the platform and sang Save Me, one of the two songs he wrote for the new album.
After several more songs, the band performed New Born and toward the end of the song, the members made their way to Howard on the drums and jammed out with an outro of the Deftones song, Headup. As they jammed, the pyramid columns lowered, covering the band completely. The screens on the columns resembled TV’s with no signal and scratchy images. As the song ended, the TV’s on the columns went to black. The crowd who were at first more mellow were by now, loosened up, and screaming for more. Moments later, The 2nd Law: Isolated System began playing and the pyramid columns started to play a video of a woman running from some men. Clapping began in the audience as fans watched the chilling video. As the video finished, the pyramid began showing silhouettes of the band members and Uprising began. The columns rose slowly and by the guitar solo, they were upside down, hanging from the ceiling. When the song ended, the members left the stage.
Cheering and clapping began as fans begged for more. Several phones with the flashlight app were held out and more and more people played along until the entire venue was filled with beams of lights- a perfect way to introduce the bands encore, Starlight. “Thank you Los Angeles,” Bellamy shouted as he walked back on stage. “I want to see you all clapping along to this next one!” Bellamy asked as he demonstrated the rhythm of the song. But no demonstrations were needed as it seemed like everyone knew the song forward and backward! Ending their 20 song set was Survival, written and used as the official song for the 2012 London Olympics.
All throughout the show, the band performed an assortment of songs from an array of albums; from their newest 2012 release, The 2nd Law- all the way to their first album, Showbiz which released in 1999, playing Sunburn for the first time in six years! The vocals were flawless and sounded identical to the album (if not better)- and that goes for both Bellamy and Wolstenholme! The instrumentals were phenomenal, and each members improvisations on intro’s and outro’s sounded great. The strobes and lighting effects made the show not only a pleasure to hear, but an event that one can’t take their eyes off of. It is no question why this band is performing three nights in a row at the Staples Center and across arenas around the world.
Review by: Nicole Lemberg
