Corkus

Been a while since I've been to an intimate concert, but I got to see Stars last night at my favorite venue and they put on a great show. They destroyed numerous roses and I had petals raining on my head the whole night. Lots of variety in the setlist with some great crowd interaction. There was no barricade between the standing area and the stage (there's been one every previous time I've been to this venue), so Amy and Torq were basically two feet from my face the whole night (my neck is sore from craning it upwards). Even though I brought my camera in, I didn't feel like taking any pictures and just decided to enjoy the show, so apologies for lack of pics. Almost got a setlist when the guy walked right over to me after the show, but then he threw it over my head instead. Setlist:

Haha, Bliss got played in my classroom a few weeks ago on my professor's Pandora station. :D Certainly my favorite Muse song. I actually made myself a Top 10 list the other day, because I'm always saying "_____ is probably in my Top 10" but never actually bothered making a list beyond simply 5 or so. I have like five songs that battle each other for that #10 spot. :lol: Here's the list if anyone cares: (I kinda hope this doesn't prompt everyone to make really long lists of their own, but I'd never posted this list before)

A new single - "Down by the Water" - has also been available for download at their website. Didn't care for "The Hazards of Love" much, even if it was fascinating as a concept album on paper. Looking forward to a new album already, though.

The streamers were only for the stadium shows. A few of my friends licked the Plug In Baby confetti, which tastes like a battery. I was offered a piece but resisted. But it was totally hysterical watching everyone's faces when they were licking it. :laugh3:

There are two things in this world I can never resist: A) Bad puns B) Bad puns involving Neutron Star Collision Case in point: Our loooove will be like cheeeeddaaaar And we'll nooooot eat Brie toooogeeetheeer :escaping2: Neutron Star Collision live is a lot more fun than Guiding Light live. Trust me, I've gotten both (but thankfully not at the same show). That's not to say NSC is a good song - it really isn't - but mocking it is seriously half the fun. People hate it, but it's fun to hate. :lol: Guiding Light, on the other hand, just plain sucks and will die out once Muse releases its equally cheesy replacement on the next album. :rolleyes:

Matt looks like a drowned rat. :laugh3: Speaking of Matt and speaking of chickens, whatever became of Matt's chicken suit? Oh, my friend met Chris at one of his football games. I can't imagine how many babies result from actually touching him...

Wow, I forgot these guys are due for a new album next year. (Perhaps because the Zooey fanboy in me has conveniently blanked anything Ben Gibbard from my mind. :P) Looking forward to a change in direction also. Yeah, Narrow Stairs was a bit different, but not too different. Hard to tell. Give Transatlanticism or Plans a try (the former is better but the latter is more accessible). If you don't like one of them, chances are this band isn't for you.

Oh same here. Welled up majorly. Every Muse fan has an obligation to hear Ruled By Secrecy live. If they don't play it at your show, then you are further obligated to continue attending Muse shows until they play it for you. After that, the cycle repeats itself so you can hear it again. Depends on the venue, but it hasn't happened to me for Muse. At Honda Center, they wanded us. At Staples Center, they just had us pass through a metal detector. At some smaller shows for other artists I've seen, though, I've gotten the full body pat.

Oh God, I was at this show and on barrier, and the entire curtain thing was freaking hilarious. Of course, most of us were too focused on Chris's curtain to pay any attention to Matt's, as Chris was still covered by the entire curtain until the first chorus of Uprising. We gave him a standing ovation once it finally got pulled off (it kept dangling and getting caught on the corners; funny as hell), but only a select few folks far over on Matt's side could see what was happening to poor Glitterati and company. I didn't find out it was permanently dead until recently, though. Rumor has it Matt got pissed off and that's what sent him into the riff frenzy at the end of the show, but I'm not sure how much validity that claim has.

CITZEN ERASED TONIGHT? :shocked2: Everyone who was at the Jersey show just had a random effect inflicted upon them: A) An orgasm so powerful that it makes any future orgasms impossible. B) Pregnancy with octuplets who all either look like Matt, Chris, or Dom (there may also be a Kirk thrown in there). C) Skull melting, which is a step beyond mere face melting and effects the entire bone structure. D) All clothes literally rocked off, rendering you unable to wear clothes until Post Muse Syndrome vanishes in a couple months. E) All of the above. Frickin' Jersey. :laugh3: I know some Coldplayers were at the show, so I hope they had fun. I also hope they got really, really pregnant, regardless of gender. (Muser joke, if you don't get it.)

It's agonizing; I know from experience. The night before is the worst because it's so hard to sleep. (I actually had to take a drowsy med because I had such difficulty sleeping) So I've been watching YouTube videos of my gigs just for the nostalgia, and I'm finding myself all over the screens on the towers. Like, my part of the pit is prominently featured in Uprising, Unnatural Selection, Plug In Baby, and Knights. Pretty cool, even though I look like a bouncing dorkus malorkus in all of them. :lol:

Ah...and here we are today with The Resistance, the album which both helped break Muse out into the mainstream beyond just Europe and divided the core fanbase in the process. That's not to say this album can't rock when it wants to. It just doesn't want to enough. Likewise, it's slipped down into the slot of my least favorite Muse album (originally I had it equal to BH&R), but it still gets plenty of playtime from me and lots of sing-alongs in the car. I think it's a solid yet inconsistent album. I probably like the latter 6 tracks more than I like any of the first 5 tracks on the album. It starts off which a series of pop-rock songs (Uprising is a proper anthem that appeals to basically everyone, while Resistance is decent too), then delves into some lesser tracks that are either over-produced (Undisclosed Desires), over-the-top ridiculous (United States of Eurasia), or just cheesy pieces of garbage (Guiding Light). Fortunately, all becomes right again with Unnatural Selection, which is a candidate for my favorite of the album and is a legitimate rocker both on record and live. MK Ultra continues the trend, and I Belong to You - while quirky and odd - is too charming not to love. And Exogenesis is beautiful through and through, meant to be listened as a whole rather than piece-by-piece. This is the first tour I got to see the band live on (3 times in total) and I can't wait to see them again for LP6. Let it also be known that Undisclosed Desires is the only Muse song that works a lot better on record than it does live (seriously, it's a snoozer live). USoE, on the other hand, works much better live. And thanks for the write-up! :thumbsup:

Black Holes & Revelations isn't Muse's best album by any means, but it's the one that got me into the band in the first place. In fact, my whole Muse fanaticism started with one fateful day when I heard Knights of Cydonia on KROQ. I immediately checked out the rest of the album, and then proceeded backwards in their LP catalog from there. It's true that Starlight and Supermassive Black Hole were easily their most pop-like tracks up to that point, but they're pop-rock songs done right (Starlight has great audience involvement and SMBH sounds a lot better live than on record). In fact, there really aren't any bad songs on this album, but there are weaker ones. Exo-Politics is nothing special and Invincible was their first venture into unabashed cheese, though both are still fairly decent songs. The highlight of the album? Map of the Problematique, which in my opinion, is their greatest post-Absolution track. That's no disrespect to Knights or Take a Bow of course, both of which bookend the album in spectacular fashion (I stand by my statement that all of Muse's album openers and closers are great).

Alright, here we go, and just in time before class! (only doing a song-by-song discussion for Abso since it's my favorite Muse album): Apocalypse Please - On an album filled with piano gems, this song really kicks off Absolution with a bang, and may be my favorite overall album opener from Muse. It's actually a very simple song lyrically, but it hits all the major themes of the album. One of the biggest reasons why Muse needs to extend their live piano sequence beyond just 2 songs, as that just shuts out too much of their library. Time is Running Out - As far as Muse's "hits" go, TIRO is at the top for me. It's a great rocker and gets a crowd in a frenzy. The chorus is immense and the bass is killer. There was actually a time when I tried to perfect the "Ooh ooh oh yah yah yah yah yah" part, but I gave up on that long ago. Now I just yell it without attempting the falsetto. Sing for Absolution - An absolutely beautiful song, and one of the very first Muse songs I was able to get into (their heavier rockers took a little longer for me). In terms of Muse's softer songs, this is most certainly among the best, with some of its only real competition coming from this very album. Stockholm Syndrome - If you don't like this song, you don't like Muse and should probably listen to a different band instead. Another one of the songs that put Muse on the map, Stockholm Syndrome is one of Muse's heaviest rockers and one of their biggest crowd pleasers. Awesome song. Falling Away With You - It's a real shame that Muse could never get FAWY to work well live. For all we know, it could be gorgeous, but that's just not a risk the band is willing to take (though honestly, I'd take it over quite a few songs played today). Alas, in its studio form, FAWY is still a very lovely song. Hysteria - The downside (or upside?) of writing a song like Hysteria is that you're basically stuck playing it at every single gig for the rest of your life. Muse is totally gonna be doing that (along with Plug In Baby and a few others). Hysteria is one of the definitive Muse songs with instantly-recognizable guitar and bass. One of the band's crowning achievements. Blackout - I really like the heavy-soft-heavy-soft track pattern that Absolution has going on, as if signifying some imbalance or unrest. Blackout is a drop-dead stunning track that uses its quiet nature to captivate. And holy hell does the HAARP DVD version rule. Would killed to have seen it in person. Butterflies & Hurricanes - Beautiful. Powerful. Flawless. Butterflies & Hurricanes is - depending on the day - my favorite Muse song. I could say a lot of good things about this song, but instead, I must direct you to the heavenly, jaw-dropping piano bridge and have that speak for itself. Meshed between the angrier piano and the fierce vocals, the bridge is the definitive peak of Muse's definitive track on Muse's definitive album. The Small Print - All in all, TSP is a pretty standard rocker, but it's an effective and awesome one all the same. I really enjoy the footage of performances with Chris's vocals, which is part of what pushes this song over the top for me. Oh, and we had a fun sing-along to this in line last month. Fun times. Endlessly - If I had to pick out a least-favorite track on Absolution, this would be it. That said, I have grown to appreciate this song much more than I did at first. It's definitely a soft and dark-yet-pretty song, although I think Blackout does a superior job of that earlier on the album. Thoughts of a Dying Atheist - This song seems to have some mixed reception among fans, and while it's not Absolution's most brilliant moment, it's far from a low point. The repetitive chorus works to the song's advantage, driving home the topic of the unknown. Ruled By Secrecy - A brilliant conclusion to a brilliant album, RBS is a beautifully paralyzing track. I refer to paralysis because I was quite literally stunned when they whipped this song out at my last show. I was seriously crying. In fact, it beats out the likes of Megalomania, Knights, and Exogenesis (all awesome songs) for my favorite album closer. The song brilliantly builds up to the piano climax, which is one of Muse's most staggering moments. Phew.

I love love love love love love love love love love love love love love Absolution. Absolution is Muse's masterpiece. Say what you want about Origin of Symmetry, but Absolution is Muse firing on all cylinders. Not only was it a vital breakthrough for them (Hysteria, TIRO, and Stockholm Syndrome solidified their popularity), but pretty much every track is phenomenal. Butterflies & Hurricanes often rotates with Bliss in my books as my favorite Muse song. It's the peak of a fantastic album. BTW Violet, your write-up is fantastic and I think I'm actually gonna do a full song-by-song write-up later (not now...I have night class in a few). Watch this space...(and I'm going all the way...and be my slave to the grave... :P)

Megalomania on Hullabaloo is awesome. All of Muse's album closers are excellent, in fact.

Bliss is my favorite Muse song. Period. The fact that is has an awesome video to accompany it (one of Muse's best, actually) sweetens the deal. It's a real drag that it gets played so infrequently, which is part of the reason I bawled when I saw them play it last month (the other part being, well, that it's ****ing Bliss). The song is really something special. Not that it's the only song worth noting, of course. While I prefer Absolution, OoS is a treasure. Plug In Baby and New Born helped to put Muse on the map, while Space Dementia and especially Citizen Erased remain two of the most popular Muse songs among the hardcore fanbase. Perhaps the most underrated song is Darkshines, which is Muse being raw at their best. If I had to pick out a song on here I'm not a huge fan of, it would be Screenager. But everything else on the album is a home run, and that includes their cover of Feeling Good, which when you think about it, only gets flack from fans because it takes the slot of superior piano songs during live shows. Apparently New Born has been rotated out of a couple recent shows, which is pretty sad. It's not as famous as Plug In Baby, but it's still one of Muse's best rockers and envisioning an LP6 tour without New Born is a horrifying thought. (Heck, Matt hasn't even been on piano for it during this current tour.) All in all, Origin is a classic and sets a good example of what I'd like to see Muse come back to for LP6.

Holy crud, I totally forgot Muse week was even happening here. :laugh3: Showbiz the album is kind of a mixed bag for me, as while the band's roots lie in a lot of its songs, not every song is quite a success (I'm not a fan of Overdue or Sober). That said, Showbiz the song is one of my favorite Muse tracks (behind only Bliss and B&H) and it's a travesty that it doesn't get played anymore. In fact, Showbiz songs in general get played very infrequently these days, and I think that's a shame. Seriously, watch this live performance and see if your pants don't get blown off: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwCTnEOSoxI]YouTube - Muse Showbiz live at Reading[/ame]

BH&R isn't Muse at their peak, but it's a healthy blend of their previous rock greatness and some of the more pop tunes that would come to follow in The Resistance (EdPlay should beware...The Resistance has some great rockers but also some real cheese). The reason I'm not always singing the praises of Muse's pop material is because it's so inconsistent. Supermassive Black Hole and Uprising are pop-rock songs done right. They aren't the band's best songs, but they're great at appealing to both Muse's core fanbase as well as their more casual one. Guiding Light and Neutron Star Collision? Not so much. That said, Invincible is totally a guilty pleasure in spite of how cheesy it is.

Should have warned ya...it's their first real step into the "pop" territory. The Resistance continues the trend. That said, Map of the Problematique is totally their best post-Absolution song. I'm really glad they played it at one of my shows.

Roadie #43 – Blog #5 October 13, 2010 How #43 Got His Booze Back Guess who’s back? Yes, ungrateful peasants, I have returned. I suppose I owe all of you an explanation for my lengthy absence. After all, explaining myself would make me a better roadie than #42, who irresponsibly took the summer off without warning his most loyal fans. First of all, I hope you are enjoying the Digital Transmissions section of Coldplay.com. Personally, I was so enamored by the concept that I felt like treating Coldplay’s fans to exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of last year’s Wembley shows (Has it really been a year? Or have I just been drinking too much to remember anything?) involving Chris and Jonny giving each other manicures backstage. Of course, such footage was so incredibly awesome that it crashed Coldplay.com and caused various glitches to appear across the site, and Digital Transmissions has run sluggishly ever since (tech management tells me it’s because my file was too large, but I know they’re lying scum buckets). As a result, Coldplay.com lost the BT Digital Music Awards. As punishment, I was temporarily laid off from the Beehive’s staff. This gave Miller the opportunity to rush back from his extended, extended, extended holiday and provide some juicy blog updates about how little the boys have actually accomplished with LP5. In the meantime, I found temporarily labor working for Keane. Oh, the agony! If I wasn’t so completely drunk the whole time, I may have actually learned to like a band other than Coldplay! Granted, #42 has spread a lot of truly nasty rumors in his latest blogs that have fans questioning things beyond their literal interpretation. In his mid-September blog, #42 mentioned “a good healthy dose of tutting and cursing”. Now, I may not know what the hell “tutting” means (I assume it involves dressing up like King Tut when you’re super-wasted, and in that case, I enjoy tutting all the time), but I do enjoy myself some good cursing! He mentioned how making huge music is not like The Flintstones. I am inclined to disagree. Chris is totally Fred Flintstone. Not only is he a stubborn loudmouth, but he enjoys shouting silly catch phrases at inappropriate moments. (Some examples include “Gee willikers, Will!” and “Heeeeere’s Jonny! No really, here’s Jonny!”) However, most will agree that Blog #122 was a pointless endeavor that only served to inform everyone that the band was still alive and had done diddly squat over the summer. Fortunately, Blog #123 came one week later and included lots of picture goodness to make all my adoring fangirls drool. #42 mentioned how “the plan has been shaken up like a fizzy drink can”. And as everyone knows, the only proper thing to do in that situation is to drop a Mentos in the can. The boys are obviously very excited about a particular song they have been working on. That said, it is apparent that the boys are also very excited about the other 200 song ideas they have come up with, so they have created a song-selecting process that involves putting on a blindfold and throwing darts at a wall with song titles on them. (I suggested adding drinking games to the mix but was quickly shot down by Guy, who is a recovering alcoholic, as we all know.) In the blog, it is also mentioned that Chris’s vocals are heard from behind Phil’s door. I guarantee you that these are not lyrics, nor are they harmonic. Presumably, Phil badly destroyed Chris in an arm-wrestling match, who let out a wail of pain that sounds not unlike an angel being struck by lightning – still angelic, yet filled with despair. Roadie #42 also said that Chris has been stuffing his notebook full of doodles and lyrics. Personally, doodles and Chris’s lyrics are the same exact damn thing to me. (In fact, I’m pretty sure a stick man drawing has more depth than “Those who are dead are not dead”.) At the end of the blog, he teased the next record by leaving a picture of the journal. I don’t know why #42 would purposely reveal the album artwork like that. Don’t try to convince me that it’s not it. After seeing the latest Weezer album cover, I am willing to believe anything can be album art. Speaking of which, if someone paid me $10 million to break my band up, I’d sure as hell do it! That’s like a lifetime of paid-off booze! Unfortunately, I have no more space to discuss Blog #124, which I will save for next time. I also realize that I haven't cursed this entire blog, which is a fucking shame if you ask me. Likewise, I will leave you with a list of my favorite Coldplay drinking songs: - Glass of Beer - Swallowed in the Sea (of Beer) - A Rush of Beer to the Head - Viva La Vodka (so overplayed, though) - Warning Wine - Wine Shadows - Tequila Come - Fix You (a Drink) - Liquor in Japan / Rum of Love - A Whiskey

Golfing vids are hilarious. Especially Chris's (that is so clearly Matt's laugh during it). They need to update their U.S. shop soon. I wasn't able to get any merchandise these past two times since Priority #1 was getting barrier as soon as I got inside the venue, and they have new merch since the first leg.

Indeed, #43 has been missing in action for quite some time. Perhaps it has to do with the sudden re-emergence of #42, who scares the living daylights out of #43. Last I heard, #43 was caught tinkering with Coldplay.com, which caused certain bugs to appear across the website and made several features not work properly, ultimately costing Coldplay the BT Digital Music Awards. He has been punished for his actions and forced to work for Keane for a few weeks instead. Rest assured, #43 is not gone forever. He shall return soon, drunker with rage than ever.

Coldplay - The Scientist (acoustic) - Something about 15,000 people singing along to a stripped-down version of Coldplay's loveliest songs is unbelievably captivating, and probably the strongest moment I've seen at their shows. Snow Patrol - Run - Gary did the first half of this song solo, giving the venue a similar (though much more intimate) feeling as the Coldplay experience, except for the fact that the band came in to play the second chorus and brought an emotional rush of energy into the room that was dazzling. Phoenix - 1901 - No, I wasn't one of the fortunate few in the pit when Thomas Mars bolted through the pit in pitch darkness, but it was nonetheless a stellar sight to see, especially as the audience was dragged back in for one more reprise of the chorus. Metric - Combat Baby (acoustic) - Yeah, I'm listing a lot of acoustic stuff here, and mostly all for the same reason, but this one may have gotten the loudest audience participation of them all. You could barely even hear Emily over the crowd. Muse - Ruled By Secrecy flowing into Bliss - My most recent cherished moment and one of the most powerful. Both are infrequently played songs, and RBS had me in tears from the very first note. I really started welling up at the piano climax, but that serene beauty quickly turned into a frenzy once Bliss started immediately thereafter. Weird Al - Fat - WHAT? Stop looking at me like that. I was 11 and I thought it was the fucking greatest thing ever when he waddled out in the fat suit. :P

Yeah, I think they'll toss out The Hardest Part and Green Eyes, and perhaps revive a different oldie for a piano or acoustic sequence. Here are the most obvious setlist mainstays: Yellow Clocks In My Place The Scientist Fix You Viva La Vida And a few more that will likely return anyway: Politik Violet Hill Lovers in Japan I'd also include one more wild card song from Viva (preferably Strawberry). I'm hesitant to include Speed of Sound since that was tossed out on the latter half of the Viva tour, and Talk and GPASUYF are unpredictable given their Viva remixed forms (which won't appear again like that, but personally, I'd like to see both back in standard forms). Give space for the return of 2 or 3 other songs from prior albums that weren't played at all on the Viva tour. The rest will be filled with LP5 material.