Muse / 30 Seconds To Mars / PVRIS

Ignatius Feb 23, 2019

PVRIS was great, I don't know their songs so I couldn't hear the lyrics, but particularly the bassist and drummer were hyped. 30 Seconds To Mars I feel like I'm gonna undersell compared to Muse, but I guess that's just how good Muse is. Jared Leto was just amazing. Constant crowd interaction, acoustic performance of The Kill, fans onstage, Echelon flags dispersed in the crowd. Just a wholesome person that is clearly in his element, doing what he loves, spreading a feeling of unity through his music. Provehito in Altum.

MUSE.

What's particularly special about this show is it was streamed on Facebook, and viewers were voting between 3 pairs of songs to be played throughout the night. So we got Bliss when we could have gotten Plug In Baby, then Stockholm Syndrome instead of The Handler, and Undisclosed Desires beat out Dead Inside. I would have been pleased had any of the votes gone the other way but I think these were the ideal choices. Bliss, obviously because I've never seen it, while I've seen Plug In Baby twice and I'm aware it was a long-standing pillar of Muse setlists ever since OoS. I love Handler and Dead Inside but Stockholm Syndrome is badass and comes packaged with 3 outro riffs and a guitar being thrown, and I haven't seen it in 4 years. And he played an acoustic guitar during Undisclosed Desires which I was very pleased to hear. That song started out great and has gone through an evolution of live versions from the keytar to the minimalist electric drums and now this. Lovely.

Beyond the voting gimmick, it was just an incredible show. Matt walked through the crowd during Starlight, 20 feet away from me and held hands with some lucky, classy chick for a whole 30 seconds. (I'm just fangirling like I've never fangirled before at all of that...) The visuals were on point (the 11 obelisk stage) and the sound quality. MY GOD the sound quality was impeccable. Every single song, I don't care how many times I've heard them I have to say that was the best performance I've seen of each of them. When the confetti went off during Mercy, that kind of thing doesn't usually do much for me, but this time it was just massive and I was genuinely moved by how beautiful that moment was. And I know I've seen the Globalist lead into Drones before, but that perfect combo will never get old. It then went straight from Drones to Uprising and closed with Knights of Cydonia. While Drones played I thought to myself about how Drones and New Kind of Kick both had Matt offstage and one of them is super dramatic and the other you just cannot take seriously. And I do share the same opinion as the fanbase on that song but I just kind of gave into the absurdity and said you know what, Muse can do whatever the fuck they want at this point, I'll love them for it. It was dumb but that was the point and I was entertained. This is the same guy who joins in on the joke that Soldier's Poem is the best song off of Absolution, what else do you expect?