Acer Arena finally MUSE-ic to my ears

Friday, 10 December 2010

 Muse

Acer Arena, Olympic Park, Sydney, Australia, 9pm

Wow.

It takes quite a band to stop my whingeing about the dreadful acoustics and warehouse feel of (sp)Acer Arena. I whinge. A lot. And I like it. The very few friends that have survived such whinging can attest this is quite a feat.

So far and yet so freaking far

Seeing the Binocular Store outside our seat gates made me want to buy one just so I could see how far my heart had dropped. “Damn you, Acer. You’re so big, even the good seats are still crap,” I cried and shook my fist to the heavens. I travelled a fair distance to Acer Arena only to have the same view as if I stayed at home in Sydney’s north shore and squinted from my windows.

Not something you want to see...

Waiting in the long intermission between support and the main event, my friend commented on the people seated close to the stage but behind it. “I would rather be there. Being close to the back of their heads is better than seeing Matty’s beautiful face as only a speck.” But these people would soon have the best seats in the house with the rotating podiums on which Muse would soon introduce themselves.

Welcome to Acer...see?!

 Paranoia is in bloom….

Our paranoia of having the worst seats in the worse stadium was aurally and visually blown away with opener, Uprising. The fluoro green lighting shimmied Matt Bellamy’s operatic voice to our nosebleed section – Acer’s huge warehouse grew bigger with each verse but simultaneously the walls closed in to capture the performance of the year that is Muse.

Awesome!

3 podiums stretched open like a yawning feline’s huge jaw, baring its teeth of dirty bass lines, revolving snare cracks, and wahhhs of falsettos and riffs. Acer Arena was well and truly awake. But you still had to rub your eyes to keep the shine of Matt’s silver glitter suit from burning your retinas – that was the laser show’s job to induce fits. Sorry, Matt.

Ah, my retinas! But I feel so close.

#1 on the podium

That trifecta podium – I tell you what – a sensory playground for the ADD. If it wasn’t moving in and out, it was moving up and down, swirling, twirling, rotating, mandating. The podium doubled as a screen to show images of the guys, and video clip-art type images. A work of art within and of itself. The podium also allowed the Muse boys to run all over the stage, up ramps, which all added to the effect they were not lost in Acer Arena. This was their domain.

Big ups to Matt’s spotlight guitar, shining it through the crowd and creating a Mexican Wave, and his awesome piano playing skillz, using the synthesizer on the mic and then quickly punching out some mad chords. And while that’s not surprising, Muse was a surprising first of many things:

1. Kept my complete attent- ooh something shiny! Not even the pretty laser show could distract me, a rare occurrence. The whole performance kept me mesmerised. Acer normally has me looking for the remote control, that’s how isolated I feel in its huge space, thinking I am watching a gig DVD from my living room lounging about in my underwear. Except without the underwear bit. So I am also uncomfortable. Not cool.
2. Drum solos, spotlighted on revolving centre stage! As a wannabe drummer, nothing better than showing off the talent of the best instrument in the band normally relegated to the back. Dominic Howard, you rock!
3. Made me want to rush home from a gig for an entirely different reason than it’s shite or at Acer Arena. I wanted to play my drums, instead of screaming “I can play this!”, and build a revolving centre stage podium with spotlights in my 2×4 unit! But I couldn’t. I was at the Muse gig.
4. Cleaner vocals live. Matt’s vocals weren’t just fantastic live, they sounded better than his studio recordings. It was art, it was like hearing opera. Just much cooler with less naps.
5. Mixed up set list. Love a gig that changes day to day. Sorry, Birds of Tokyo, I love you, you know I do, but your gigs were the same throughout your tour, you even said the same jokes! Muse played different songs to dedicate to different people during their Sydney tour. Perhaps we should have gone on Thursday to hear the dedication of Citizen Erased to Wikileaks’ Julian Assange [see below].

Heard some criticisms that the English lads weren’t chatty, but Matt was pretty talkative, let the man rest his gorgeous vocal chords! He said what we wanted to hear: “Sydney, it’s a great city!” and what my friend didn’t want to hear, “[Starlight] is dedicated to Rachel Finch.” (Miss Australia/Lara Bingle Speedos nemesis) ["Biatch, why not dedicate it to me?!" lamented my friend.]

The traditional Muse balloons [big, white and eyeballed this time] dropped from the ceiling before the encores. It was only when these Swiss Balls soon looked like golf balls over the mosh, you were reminded of the huge expanse of Acer Arena. And instead of hating it, I focussed on the positives and appreciated the talent of the band who filled it. Yep, a first for everything.

Smoke us out.

Click on this to see more gig photos.

[Check out "Time is Running Out" with "House of the Rising Sun" intro. Vid not my own but from actual gig.]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywrh_gNACYQ

Set list

We are the Universe (intro tape)

Uprising

Resistance

New Born (w/ Microphone Fiend riff)

Supermassive Black Hole

Bliss

Hysteria (w/ Interlude intro, and Back In Black Outro)

Nishe

Butterflies & Hurricanes

United States Of Eurasia

Feeling Good

Helsinki Jam

Undisclosed Desires

Time is Running Out (w/ House of the Rising Sun intro and people hardly knowing the words)

Starlight (dedicated to Rachel Finch by Dom – biatch!)

Plug In Baby

Exogensis [encore]

Stockholm Syndrome  [second encore] (w/ multiple riffs including Agitated and Endless Namesless)

Knights of Cydonia [finale!] (w/ bassist Christopher Wolstenholme on Harmonica intro)