Musings On Religion, Part 1 (Origin of Absolution and Revelations)

I’m not aware of anything about religion on Showbiz, so we begin with the end of Origin of Symmetry.

Megalomania

“Paradise comes at a price
that I am not prepared to pay.
What were we built for?
Could someone tell me please?
Take off your disguise,
I know that underneath, it’s me.”

I would say “Paradise comes at a price that I am not able to pay.”

And in answer to the question what were we built for?

“Q. 3. Why did God make you and all things ?
A. For his own glory.”

 

Spot The Difference

Sing For Absolution

“There’s nowhere left to hide;
in no one to confide.
The truth burns deep inside
and will never die…
Our wrongs remain unrectified…”

Definitions of absolution on the Web:

“the condition of being formally forgiven by a priest in the sacrament of penance
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn“

Ok, well, only God has the authority to forgive sins (the Jews wanted to kill Jesus when he claimed to be able to do so), so if we are only absolved by a priest, then our wrongs do indeed remain unrectified. When we meet God there will be nowhere left to hide, and if he hasn’t forgiven us there will be no one to turn to. The truth burns deep inside, and will never die.

Thoughts of a Dying Atheist

“Are you afraid to die?
It scares the hell out of me.”

I wonder why, if our lives are just chemical reactions anyway, it should be so scary that they should end.

Four Horsemen?

Take A Bow

“You will burn in hell.”

The possibility needs to be taken seriously. You need to be absolutely sure that you’re not going to hell. If you don’t believe hell exists, is there any possibility you could be wrong?

City of Delusion

“build a fortress and shield your beliefs…
Can I believe
when I don’t trust?
All your theories turn to dust.
I choose to hide
from the All-Seeing Eye…
You will not rest
or settle for less,
until you’ve guzzled and squandered what’s left.
Do not deny
that you live and let die.”

In some ways I think he has a point here, a lot of us Christians don’t live our lives as very good examples. I can only point to the example that Christians are aiming to imitate (that would be Jesus) and suggest that trying to hide from the All-Seeing Eye might make quite a cool lyric, but in practice it’s not sensible.

Setlists 2: Giving The People What They Want (or A Seaside Rendezvous)

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!

Setlists

This was originally supposed to be just a response to a comment on another blog, but it turned into bit of an essay so I decided to turn it into a post in it’s own right.

Basically, the question is: Should bands play their hits at every gig?

I’m going to see Muse for the 2nd time on Friday, and would be quite happy to hear all of The Resistance and not hear Time Is Running Out, Feeling Good, New Born & Knights of Cydonia.

But maybe this would not be fair on new fans who want to hear their most famous songs.

I saw them before (for the 1st time) at Wembley Stadium, they played 9 songs off of Black Holes, plus everything you would expect them to play (I think), except Bliss. I kind of consider myself relatively new to Muse, having discovered them at the Time Is Running Out stage, meaning songs like Bliss are actually from before my time. But by the time I got round to going to a gig I had listened to their previous stuff and decided that my favourite songs weren’t necessarily the famous ones, and Time Is Running Out has become one of my least favoured, alongside Feeling Good.

I think the idea that bands should always play their hits definitely applies to festival sets, but when they’re doing a headline tour for an album, I expect the set to be dominated by new stuff.

Having said that, I would always expect any band to play some hits, and with Arctic Monkeys only on album #3, I am surprised they would leave out Scummy; while Muse, having been around a bit longer, have a few more hits, and I think can better afford to leave out some of their famous ones. I can’t really comment on Radiohead because I don’t know what they’re famous for. I know The Bends is my favourite of their albums, but I bought it (followed by all the others) based on a recommendation without having heard any of the songs before.

Personally I wouldn’t spend around £60 (that’s a Muse ticket plus train fare) to see a band if I only knew a couple of songs. If people can afford to do that, fair play to them, they’re probably used to getting what they want.

Probably more relevant is my first trip to see Red Hot Chili Peppers when I was a relatively new fan (at the time I owned By The Way, What Hits!? and Greatest Hits), I would have been disappointed on that occasion if they hadn’t played By The Way, The Zephyr Song, Can’t Stop, Under the Bridge & Give It Away. But then, that was the Greatest Hits tour, so it would’ve been a bit stupid of them not to play the popular ones. I would’ve loved pretty much any of the songs from By The Way, which was the first ever album by anyone that I bought, Venice Queen is still one of my all time favourite songs. (My memory’s not good enough to remember an entire set from 5 years ago, I looked it up here. I still find it pretty cool that I was at the gigs where RHCP’s Live in Hyde Park and Muse’s HAARP were recorded, and I saw James Brown live.)

When I saw them on the Stadium Arcadium tour I was actually a bit disappointed they only played 5 of the 28 songs from the new album.

Both times I would’ve loved to see a Flea trumpet solo (having spent 10 years of my school life learning to play the Cornet), and songs like Higher Ground, Knock Me Down and Taste The Pain. They have quite a large back catalogue though, so I’m prepared for the unlikeliness of my ideal setlist actually occurring.

I imagine I will go and see them again when they return (apparently they’re starting work on a new album in the next couple of weeks). Hopefully I’ll finally get to see a Trumpet solo, maybe Funky Monks, Higher Ground… Funny Face would be awesome. Meanwhile I would not be at all disappointed if they didn’t play Dani California, Under The Bridge or Give It Away, but then again, they mix up their songs with extended jams or by incorporating other songs into intros, so hearing the same songs need not be boring.

I wouldn’t want to hear too many covers at a gig, and a Nick Cave song wouldn’t have meant anything to me, but I do think it’s interesting to find out who a band is influenced by, and I’ve discovered a lot of great songs via Chili Peppers covers, from artists such as Jimi Hendrix, The Ramones, Stevie Wonder, Looking Glass, David Bowie, The Meters, Bob Dylan, Sly & The Family Stone, Simon & Garfunkel, Sweet, Cat Stevens, The Chantels, The Shangri-Las, Del Shannon, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, The Chirelles, The Beach Boys, George Clinton, Funkadelic, Iggy & The Stooges, Parliament, Jackson 5, Hank Williams, Fugazi, .45 Grave.

Musing

Matt Bellamy - he's from Teignmouth. My grandparents used to go there on holiday.

New Muse Album and Tour later this year.

‘Otherworldly disco’, ‘orchestral monsters’, ‘at least one 15 minute space-rock solo’, ‘it may just be one 50 minute symphony’, ‘like a full collaberation with an orchestra’, ’we’ll be knocking on Classic FM’s door, you know?’

…and apparently Matt’s composing all the orchestral parts himself ‘cos he’s worried about another composer changing his music.

Sounds awesome.

I tend to think of Origin of Symmetry as their most consistently brilliant album so far, but there are great things about all of them.

I would possibly choose Unintended from Showbiz as their single best song, I tend to find that if I can play a song on guitar it makes it less impressive, but in this case, even though I can play and sing it (sometimes even at the same pitch as Matt) at the same time, I still love it. Escape is also a favourite. I’m not necessarily opposed to lots of production, I think music should sound how the artist intends it to sound, I’m mainly interested in quality of lyrics and composition than ‘sound’, but this is a good ‘raw’ album.

My favourite songs on Origin would have to be Space Dementia, Citizen Erased, and Micro Cuts has grown to be one of my favourites after initially being the weird song that I usually skipped.

Absolution has Butterflies & Hurricanes. It’s worth having just for that really. I’m not a big fan of Time Is Running Out, although I do play and sing along to that too. Obviously there’s Stockholme Syndrome and Apocalypse Please which are also great.

Black Holes & Revelations excites me less, but works well live. I would like Knights of Cydonia a lot more if it didn’t contain the suggestion that God falls asleep on the job. Watching the Invincible guitar solo is one of the highlights on the HAARP dvd, and I love the Maggie’s farm ending to Map of the Problematique (obviously that’s not part of Black Holes, but to me it’s part of what Muse are about). If you don’t already have the Grand Omega Bosses Edit of Assassin (B-side to Knights of Cydonia), you have to hear it, I can only assume it was left off the album because it’s too good, the rest of Black Holes sounds boring in comparison.

Muse’s ‘best yet’ – BBC
Theories about the new Album at MuseWiki
Tour Details coming soon – Muse official website