G’A 4 MUSE

Last month, I caught a date on Muse’s arena tour of the U.S. and, shit, wait a second, I thought good pop bands didn’t do well enough in America to play arenas. Especially ones from England. Gosh, if memory serves, Take That basically ran Great Britain’s parliament from 1992 — 1996 and those dweebs could hardly even chart stateside. Whatever. Good for Muse. Actually, the entire night was rife with paradoxes, like when the local morning radio DJ spent the pre-show moments unsuccessfully peacocking at the soundboard. I mean, I doubt that anybody anywhere in history has ever said, “Hey, there’s that guy from the radio!” It’s fuckin’ impossible! Then, the audience — a mix of Coldplay refugees and squealing jailbait — seemed to transform the main floor into a UCLA freshman psych lecture set at a J. Crew outlet store. Sexy, right? Good thing I brought the whole batch of roofies.

And a funny thing happened en route to the venue as we passed a hipster metal show at a fancy beer den for bearded rapists. Assessing our gang’s high hesh quotient and general metalness, the smokers out front instinctively parted to allow us entry into the building. Expressionless, we sashayed past their display of grudging courtesy and right across the street to the Enormo-Dome where we would rock with the squares. Pssht suckerz. Okay, that seems a bit reverse-snobby in print, but hey dude, if we’d attended that show/weaselfest/vintage gear fondle-a-thon, those chode-ticklers would’ve vibed us all night; we acted in pre-emptive self-defense. Fuck them.

The best parts of the night, however, came each time Muse concluded one of their mighty jamz with a cover song mini-jam. Just as I’d start spacing out, they’d rip into “Back in Black” (the hoedown) or Frank Zappa’s “Willie The Pimp” (main riff). They even schooled Metallica in the art of rock-ifying Ennio Morricone with “Man With A Harmonica” from Once Upon A Time In America (Henry Fonda FTW). Best of all was the slamming half-rendition of Deftones’ “Headup” (above at MSG, skip to 6:30 for “Headup”), which made it official that I’d chosen the city’s metalest show and provided an excuse to write about Muse right here and now. Victory!

-ADF

Muse sorta covers your favorite jams all over Australia this December. Dates here.