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First of all, allow me to say that I have watched the live webcast of the gig last night, and even though the setlist was predictable, I am not going to moan and cause beef about it. Enough of that goes on at muse.mu.
And yes, they played Guiding Light. Again. I don’t pretend to understand why Muse prefer that song to their much-requested MK Ultra (or anything else from their back catalogue that’s also much requested and is still ignored by the band!), all I know is that Matt’s vocals were good, and so was the guitar riff in the middle of the song. I don’t mind Guiding Light.
Once again, they were spectacular! Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Muse are not worth watching live!
— Erato1
From Soundcheck
What’s always been special about KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas shows at Universal-now-Gibson Amphitheatre -– in addition to being among the ultimate hot-ticket parties of the season, of course –- is that the (typically) five-hour event more or less levels the playing field among its many stars, fresh and established.
I don’t mean you should compare watermelons to grapes –- to pit, say, very appealing newcomer White Rabbits, Sunday evening’s first of nine bands, against the increasingly mighty Muse, Night 2’s rather tremendous closer, currently cresting atop a wave of breakthrough popularity that seems to be leading to what could be a pretty magnificent headlining turn at Coachella come April.
But apart from bringing along their own visual arsenal and those space-age microphone stands Matt Bellamy (above) and Chris Wolstenholme use, the three Muse men don’t really have much of an advantage over undercard acts. Yeah, they’ve got the big-time seasoning and ridiculous chops younger hopefuls might crave -– yet that doesn’t mean a scrappier, less-skilled band can’t win over the room just as handily.
Witness Cage the Elephant Sunday night: talk about a primitive force just blowing people away!
Frontman Matt Schultz –- that dude’s just absurd, a complete convulsing spazz, a marionette with his strings all twisted who nonetheless can balance himself sturdily enough to be held up by his ankles after stage-diving. I’m not sure he sings so much as spews forth whatever comes burbling out of his system. (You know how people warn that you’re getting on their last nerve? This guy IS that last nerve, personified.) Yet his lanky flopping shtick clicks in the context of the rough-hewn Strokes-on-steroids feedback rock that the rest of his fellow Kentuckians throw down. They easily could’ve held their own against most of the so-perceived harder bands from Saturday night.
What I mean, though, is that a Cage the Elephant or a White Rabbits –- or the Bravery, for that matter, the suddenly stronger New York band that had its best KROQ showing by far Sunday night, or dance-rock outfits like Metric and Phoenix, both of whom served up too-brief but deeply effective sets –- any of them has the potential to wow just like the Big Names.
Why? Because every act is essentially reduced to the same half of Gibson’s not-so-large stage, while the deceptively intimate room they must dominate, though it seats some 6,000, feels like it only holds half as much.
This isn’t the case at KROQ’s Weenie Roasts (y Fiestas!) at ye olde Irvine Meadows, where at least a third of the bands are shuffled off to smaller side stages –- and where another third on the main stage get swallowed whole by that outdoor venue’s enormity. (It also takes much more effort to come original and convince 15,000 liquored-up party people on the verge of sunstroke that you’re really worth paying attention to.)
Undercard bands have it rougher at AAC, sure –- hardly anyone has heard of White Rabbits, so naturally they played only to as many people as a telemarketer could call in a workday. Yet I bet those people are buzzing about them today … just as I suspect many others will be breathlessly explaining to friends why Phoenix is so much more than merely an omnipresent ad jingle … or why there’s more to Vampire Weekend than just that eh!-eh!-eh! hook … or why Slightly Stoopid actually isn’t stupid at all.
And that’s what I’m getting at: As is the case at Coachella –- and Sunday night’s bill largely felt like a sneak preview to the 2010 fest -– if you can really bring it at Acoustic Christmas, you’re guaranteed to make a lasting impression. Anyone can do it, in any year, whether buried in crummy lineups or ones crowded with talent.
Sunday’s fare was definitely the latter –- no truly weak spots to suffer through, with only stoner detours from Slightly Stoopid and the now-venerable 311 not entirely right for the overall mix (on paper, anyway). I’ve seen more seemingly stellar lineups fall far shorter, yet Sunday surpassed my expectations – everyone brought their A-game, everyone delivered. In more than a dozen years of reviewing this year-end capper, this Night 2 ranks among the most consistently enjoyable marathons I’ve ever sat/danced/cheered through.
That’s largely because this somewhat disparate lineup wound up sharing something in common: they all dig that groove, and their different approaches to such a pursuit meshed surprisingly well. In addition to Cage’s jittery kinda-Jack-White thing and White Rabbits coming on like a smoother Cold War Kids, there was …
• The half-American-half-Canadian Metric, packing more visceral wallop than the group’s sometimes precious records let on. With vocalist Emily Haines (right, the only woman to set foot on the Gibson stage all weekend) strutting and stomping while clad in a gold lamé jacket and equally shimmery black pants, the band roused the arriving audience with kicking expansions on singles like “Help, I’m Alive” (the one in which her heart is beating like a hammer) and “Gimme Sympathy” (in which she wonders who you’d rather be, the Beatles or the Stones) and “Dead Disco” (and funk and rock ’n’ roll – “remodel,” she insists, “everything has been done”).
• Vampire Weekend, the most worldly influenced of the lot, proving that last year’s irresistible debut was no fluke by peppering its energetic set with a few new ringers. The Dick Dale speed picking of “Cousins” and the waltzing Afropop arpeggios of “Giving Up the Gun” (I could have that title wrong) only hint at the rhythmic fun to come. Hard to say if any of the fresh stuff will be as shiny-happy as “A-Trak” or “Mansford Roof” or “Oxford Commons,” but clearly these preppy New Yorkers (boyish of all: frontman Ezra Koenig) are capable of placing an indie spin on most any exotic sound they steal. Everything they attempt feels so natural … Peter Gabriel too.
• The dramatically improved Bravery, whose blend of late-era Bowie and late-’80s-slick Cure has gained both strength and seductiveness. Vocalist Sam Endicott, here in a sleeveless Synchronicity T-shirt, still teems with affectation, and I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to let bassist Mike Hindert sing one, even if he does aim for a Lou Reed vibe. But the band overall has suddenly developed (or just starting showing off) some fierceness; one of the best songs on its third album Stir the Blood, whose title I really shouldn’t print here, exuded dark sexuality in “Why Can’t I Be You?” packaging that didn’t even need the vintage S&M porn as a video backdrop to make its aggressive point. Here’s to sticking with it: after learning the ropes at more than a few low-level KROQ spotlights, the Bravery, like the Killers before them, has now conquered this kind of event. Methinks they’ll last.
• Phoenix, from Paris (the only other overseas import of the two lineups, along with sole Englishmen Muse), who in just five songs pulled off precisely what Metric did and then some, showing how the futuristic electro-fizz sheen of its effervescent fourth album (and stateside breakthrough) Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix can become something altogether more muscular yet still danceable thanks to punchy guitars. Their scant 20 minutes blitzed by like a mega-mix. For a moment it looked like we were about to get a sixth song when vocalist Thomas Mars (left) bolted into the orchestra section, paused to wish everyone a merry Christmas and happy new year, then hollered out une, deux, trois! But that only counted the band back into the “falling, falling” chorus of the irresistible hit “1901.”
Then there’s Slightly Stoopid, so proud to be from San Diego that chief vocalist Miles Doughty wore a Chargers jersey, and 311, one of the few acts from the ’90s that lasted long enough to give rap-rock a decent name.
Stoopid’s 2007 tune “2am,” a breezy gem worthy of the English Beat or UB40 in their prime, is still a most-requested staple on KROQ, and here it shined amid the band’s other solid reggae jams, even if half the orchestra section cleared out within moments of the group hitting the stage. (They’d fare better at Weenie Roast.) But Nick Hexum and the 311 gang, making their self-proclaimed final performance of the decade this night, had a lot to live up to, as they were essentially opening for the most anticipated set of the entire weekend.
What hurts is that they had the audience right from the start, gob-smacking them with hit (“Beautiful Disaster”) after hit (“All Mixed Up”) after hit (“Come Original”) after hit (“Amber”); they were one of the few bands to get the somewhat jaded crowd up on its feet. Consummate pros that they’ve become, they’re skills never lagged –- but their pacing ultimately did. It’s understandable that they’d want to shift focus to tunes off their latest album, Uplifter, yet by front-loading so much good stuff, the middle of the set sagged, with only the swinging ditty “Flowing” standing out.
Finally, Muse … who are in a different class altogether.
I have my doubts about the group’s new look, mind you. The Orwellian overtones contrast well with the band’s operatic music, a mix of romantic yearning and what’s-the-world-coming-to disillusion (epitomized by new single “Uprising” and The Resistance’s title track) that Baz Luhrmann should steal from for his next epic musical. But elfin Bellamy’s form-fitting, shoulder-padded get-up (with magenta pants!) makes him appear like a Gary Numan robotoid, while Wolstenholme’s gear is straight out of Star Trek.
The group’s already oversized music, however, has now grown positively immense, most evident in the whooshing dynamic blast of “United States of Eurasia (+ Collateral Damage),” both the prettiest and most Queen-y thing the band has concocted. Bombast is in their DNA, whether in anthems like “Hysteria” or “Starlight” (their “Clocks” in terms of commercial success) or in slithering sex bombs like “Supermassive Black Hole” and “Time Is Running Out,” the latter of which was the greatest moment of the whole AAC shebang for me.
Muse has been a gathering storm in America for some time, and it seems ready to burst with a thundercrack. Radiohead comparisons are now passé; they may appeal to people who love Thom Yorke’s voice but just can’t get into the Kid A era, yet the group’s amalgam of influences is entirely its own. Their future is now –- for starters, they will undoubtedly kill at Coachella.
Photos above are by Kelly A. Swift, for the Orange County Register.
