Love is Our Resistance: Muse in Charlotte

By the time I'd settled into my seat at the Time Warner Cable Arena, Cage the Elephant's opening set was nearly over. I was only as familiar with them as a handful of singles, i.e. 2008's "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," but with their third album in five years due next month, shows what I know. 

I prudently sipped my $10 beer and set my senses upon this band of merry men. Well, one merry man at least: the effect of frontman Matt Schultz, a lively blonde fellow donning track pants and no shirt, complemented their grimy, funky punk sound. Schultz jumped and jammed across the stage, slithering around his guitarists (there seemed to be tons of them), at times rocking too hard to remember lyrics. He had to be either really drunk or really sober; you know that fine line? (I would find out later that the answer was indeed "really drunk.") 

Schultz punctuated their set with an impressive standing crowd surf, like one of those people who balance on dolphins' noses. Shit yeah rock & roll. I'll probably buy their upcoming album. 

Time between bands was an aching eternity of over-caffeinated surrealism. I had been in the car for two hours with energy shots and a strange mix of XM radio stations: I'll just say Ricky Martin showed up more than once. I needed to move, to dance, to spread my fingers to the sky. I needed the fire of anger and love. I needed Muse.

And then, from the heavens, there they were. 

Not in Charlotte, but fucking hell

An extravagant crimson set piece, row after row of video screens seemingly influenced by the Devo dome, began its descent from the ceiling as pyrotechnic smoke shot like geysers in front of the stage. The three dark figures behind their instruments turned it right up to 11 with a dubstep-soaked instrumental track off the current album The 2nd Law, then slammed into the heavy-hitting, Zeppelin inspired "Supremacy."

In a candy red jacket and black pants, lead singer/guitarist/pianist/songwriter Matthew Bellamy led the way through an exhilarating, spot-on set. Chris Wolstenholme brought the wild metal bass lines, my bones pulsed with drummer Dominic Howard's crashing rock mantras. A setlist comprised of genre-bending new material as well as plenty of their older shit-stomping hits was making for a very satisfying experience indeed.

Again, not in Charlotte, but there's Matt Bellamy in a red jacket

That's not to say the band was in a particularly exploratory mood. With no solos or embellishments outside of original studio incarnations to speak of, they kind of shut up and played the hits. I hate to call it a fluffer show because this was my first Muse show and I did have such an incredible time, but I could feel a cool distance, an indicator that that really sweet symbiosis between artist and audience wasn't quite clicking. You know, when they're into it and the crowd's into it and everybody knows it and the secrets of the universe are revealed. Granted, these guys have been on the road for about a year straight, and not every show can be a Glastonbury. 

What puzzled me even more than the GA floor being half-empty (even after my repeated attempts to secure floor tickets--rude!) was the lack of what I assumed were now obligatory big screens in arenas, on which one can see the band's faces even in the highest reaches of the venue. At big shows it is even more important to me to discern their expressions, their sweat. In fact Matt, Chris, and Dom's faces were lost in darkness when they weren't flashing epileptically across the cluster of smaller screens. The disconnect of this combined with the fact that they engage in zero onstage banter (if you didn't know they were British you wouldn't have known that night, they spoke so seldomly), gnawed at me.

That disappointment aside, I did enjoy my spot because there was no one near me within arm-flailing distance. So I just went nuts. While some concertgoers are sit-and-thinkers, I am a jumper. And a shout-singer. And a jazzy Jesus hand-waving fist pumper. I am not ashamed.

After these last couple weeks with the situation in Syria and the ongoing awareness that the bones of truth are buried deeply underground, I turned within and offered my body up for a true catharsis. This communion--with the art we love, with each other, with ourselves--is the kind of power that conquers. Replacing rigidity with flexibility, conformity with creativity, fear for love, incendiary bombs for incendiary guitar solos: shit, this is how we rule the world!      

Gawwwwd Depeche Mode is gonna be so fun. ACL Fest is gonna be so fun!* Concerts are so fun! LIFE IS SO FUN! 

*When I'm not cursing the name of whoever scheduled DM and Muse at the same time. 

***

Highlights: Going balls out during "Stockholm Syndrome" and the anthemic "Knights of Cydonia" and "Uprising." "United States of Eurasia" was also particularly welcome, as it fits my keen appreciation for poignancy. I do wish they had made any comments at all about the subject matter, ya know, considering the highly political nature of their work and America's impending foray into yet another one of "these wars [that] can't be won."  

Lowlights: The slow audience and what I assume is the band's indifference to Charlotte, NC (can't blame 'em) made for a slightly stale atmosphere; beers that cost $10.

Fun fact: I intimately familiarized myself with all six of Muse's studio albums in about two weeks' time. 

Setlist:

The 2nd Law: Unsustainable

Supremacy

Panic Station

Supermassive Black Hole

Plug in Baby

Resistance

Star Spangled Banner interlude

Hysteria

Knights of Cydonia

Monty Jam

United States of Eurasia

Follow Me

Liquid State

Madness

Time is Running Out

Undisclosed Desires

Stockholm Syndrome

Agitated

The 2nd Law: Isolated System

Encore:

Uprising

Starlight

Survival

Tracks I would not have kicked out of bed: Map of the Problematique, Sing for Absolution, Citizen Erased, anything from Showbiz album

xx