I went to Teignmouth on Friday.
The first band on were called The Quails, another local band, they were quite good, but not in any danger of outshining the headliners. You can usually get some idea what a band will sound like from what they look like, but they were a bit confusing, the singer looked like he belonged in We Are Scientists while one of the other guitarists looked like a Metallica tribute band member. There was at least one too many guitarists, the singer and Mr. Metallica Tribute seemed to be playing exactly the same thing the whole time, which annoyed me, but overall I might get round to listening to more of them.
Then there was Cosmo Jarvis. I instantly liked him based just on his name. His music wasn’t bad either, with songs with titles like Gay Pirates, you know he’s not taking himself too seriously. I would say he sounds like a cross between Jamie T and Lee Evans. Opener She’s Got You was probably his best song, it started with a Ukelele and finished with a Recorder. I wasn’t optimistic when he later announced “This song’s called Jesus”, but it turned out not to be too bad, he was singing to a friend who’s “not Jesus, but you’re saving me”.
Muse were obviously awesome.
I wrote before that I would have liked to hear lots of the new album. We got 5 songs from The Resistance: Uprising and United States of Eurasia which had been heard in full already, then there was Resistance, Undisclosed Desires and Unnatural Selection, of which I’d only heard 30-second samples. They also played a “jazzy” piano version of Cave (“Oh, those were the days.”)
Muse have a lot of songs starting with the letter ‘U’.
I think they got the balance between new and old stuff pretty much perfect.
I said before that I would have liked them to play all of the new album, but when it came to it, it was better that they didn’t. For me, the best type of music by any band is a song that a large crowd can sing along to, a couple of good examples of the sort of great moments I mean would be Knights of Cydonia on the HAARP DVD and Coldplay’s Fix You on LeftRightLeftRightLeft. So while I would love to see more of the new stuff live, it would be much better to know the songs beforehand.
Resistance and Undisclosed Desires sounded great, and I think the samples gave a good idea of what the songs would sound like. The lyrics to Resistance are clearly influenced by George Orwell’s 1984, while Undisclosed Desires is another step away from the Muse of the past, beyond Supermassive Black Hole and Map of the Problematique.
EDIT: How could I forget to mention Matt’s Keytarcaster used for Undisclosed Desires?
I like the “I Want The Truth” moments in Unnatural Selection, and there’s an epic riff going on that, from videos on YouTube, sounds a bit like the New Born guitar riff, but at the gig itself I was standing too close to tell what it really sounded like, it was just a lot of noise.
I was also reminded that I actually like going to gigs by myself. I’ve seen Muse and Red Hot Chili Peppers twice, once each with other people and once by myself. When you go with other people you have to find the best place to stand to please everyone, I’m pretty tall so not being able to see isn’t usually a problem (although at this gig I was briefly stuck with my nose about 2 inches from the back of someone’s head who was only slightly shorter than me), while some people don’t want to be in the middle of a packed crowd jumping up and down (I don’t jump around much myself, but it doesn’t bother me being in the middle of other people doing it). I’ve also seen Blackbud 3 times, twice with other people and once by myself, and in this case, being a relatively unknown band, I was unsure whether the people I’d taken along were enjoying it.
But in summary, Muse are awesome!
Posted by rapsthenjives 
