Concerts you have been to? | Page 8 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Silly Dad and I got there at about half-past-four (actually half-three but we had to walk a ways from our parking to the festival grounds, and then we had a water bottle they didn’t like so we had to take it back to the car — we probably ended up walking at least four miles that day), which was long before Muse (the headliners) were due to play. We caught a bit of the Struts, whom we’d never heard of but were quite favourably impressed by (they’re very retro, and the lead singer is like Micheal Jackson + Freddie Mercury + Mick Jagger x Ziggy Stardust and all the glam rockers ever, and is excellent at working a crowd) and saw Billy Idol, which was a fun show — I’ve never really heard much of his stuff, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. (As I learnt later, some guy had got video of the audience there, including me dancing, so my dancing back is somewhere on the Interwebby now. ) I was particularly impressed by his guitarist Steve Stevens, who tossed all kinds of guitar fireworks off in the most nonchalant manner, like it was old hat. (Which it probably was for him )

Then we went back to the stage where Muse was going to play — it was Incubus who were playing there then, and while I wasn’t able to fully appreciate their music because I didn’t know any of it, I was favourably impressed by how much fun the lead singer seemed to be having (he was leaping and shaking his not-inconsiderable hair and seemed to really feel the love) and the fact that they inserted a bit of ‘Wish You Were Here’ into this one song that had a chorus of ‘I wish you were here’.

Incubus’s show wrapped up at eight, and then there was an hour and forty minutes to go until Muse went on. We (and many others) stood there and waited, because Muse has a ridiculously/fabulously hardcore fanbase who will stand for an hour and forty minutes, instead of going to see Queens of the Stone Age at the other end of the festival-grounds, all to secure a good spot in the crowd. (I wouldn’t have minded seeing QOTSA, I’ve heard a couple of their songs and they seem pretty cool, but… priorities, man )

We watched the roadies strip the stage of Incubus’s junk, lug Muse’s junk onto the stage, test the Sound and Vision (Muse’s lightshow is almost as high a priority as their sounding good ), and waited. And waited. Really, I wouldn’t have minded it much — I just turned off my mind, relaxed and floated downstream — but for the fact that we were surrounded by idiots who smoked (both tobacco and pot ) like chimneys and it was all rather wearing on the respiratory, especially as we hadn’t drank a thing since we arrived. (I also got misgendered again, though this time it was the by now stoned/drunk guy [the same one who had gotten video of me dancing] who apparently referred to me as a boy… so maybe that doesn’t count as much? )

About ten minutes before ground zero, I spotted Dom (Howard, the drummer, who reminds me of Ringo) and a row of glowing bass frets walking around backstage and my excitement mounted. Then it was 9:40… and then it was 9:45… and between those were the longest five minutes of my life — perhaps they were giving time for Queens of the Stone Age’s audience to make their way over… but it was GRUELING!

AND THEN…

THE LIGHTS WENT DOWN…

the ‘Psycho’ Drill Sergeant started screaming…

AND MUSE TOOK THE STAGE!!!!

IT. WAS. EPIC.

It was also incredibly loud, crowded, close, and we were right in front of (possibly my favourite member, the bassist) Chris Wolstenholme, where there seemed to be ALL the crowdsurfers (though I suppose that’s probably a distortion, but several times they seemed to be going over like jets out of a busy airport — except that jets fly themselves ).

You can find the (quite excellent) setlist here if you’re so inclined; I will just note that their latest single, ‘Thought Contagion’, was really fun live (much moreso that I thought it would be when I first heard it), and that they played one of my all-time favourites, ‘Map of the Problematique’, which we’d been discussing earlier in the car as we listened to (my only Muse CD) Black Holes & Revelations — me dad said ‘I hope they play this one,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, me too, but they probably won’t,’ and THEY DID — I was so surprised and pleased. I also screamed my head off when they played a bit of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker’ riff as an outro to ‘Time Is Running Out’ (@WeepingAtlasCedars). Everything else was uniformly awesome — perhaps most of all seeing Matt Bellamy Himself playing all those riffs that I’ve spent hours of my life agonising over in my bedroom () and shouting the choruses along with him and everyone else in the crowd was as fun as one would rightfully think it ought to be.

I think probably the best moment of the whole show was just before the Grand Finale (which was of course ‘Knights of Cydonîa’, as hoped/expected/very nearly guaranteed), when they played Ennio Morricone’s ‘Man with a Harmonica’ theme before segueing into the song. (I also expected this, but it was WAYYYY better live than on the YouTubes). It was just really magical — and then ‘Knights of Cydonîa’, with everyone screaming NO OOONE’S GOING TO TAAAAAAAKE MEEEE ALIIIIIIIIVE all together — out with a bang! There’s a reason they almost never close with any other song — you couldn’t follow it up anyway, it’s just the best set closer ever.

And yes, I did indeed have that magical moment of comprehension where you realise that it’s actually real, you’re watching THEM IN THE FLESH — funnily enough, it wasn’t till the last song, where I was watching Dom do a particularly incredible and iconic drum fill, and my brain just went, ‘OMG it’s Dom Howard for real’ and then I looked over at Matt and Chris and thought the same for them in turn.

And then, of course, yesterday Matt Bellamy posted this to his Instagram:

and I said to meself, ‘WELL, I can personally vouch for that — I was there, underneath all the crowdsurfers’ (though not the wheelchair one; she passed some feet away).

and then I thought, ‘YEAHAHAHA I WAS THERE.’