Their approach to setlist construction is pretty predictable. 1. Play half the new album 2. Ignore the previous album except for 1 or 2 holdovers. And, yes, why is it Thought Contagion this time? 3. Play singles from OoS to Drones 4. Pretend Showbiz never happened 5. Repeat sequence for every show including a couple rotation slots It's all perfectly fine and functional but doesn't exactly encourage fans to attend more than one gig. Apparently, the band doesn't get too bored with the routine.

The first rotation slot has gone through Bliss, Map, Citizen Erased and now New Born. The second has had Resistance and UD. You just know that Stockholm Syndrome is coming to that first slot 🤩 and Feeling Good will make an appearance in the second 😞.

I'd seen Muse at least a half dozen times before the Chicago show. I don't think they had played Bliss at any of them so I was really excited when they kicked into it. They played Map at a few of the shows I've attended. Great song as well but Bliss was easily the best of those options for me.

It seems that Muse are very popular in Quebec. The Bell Centre and Videotron often get 2 shows each while many comparable American cities get skipped completely. I live in Michigan but went to see the show in Chicago because they're not playing Detroit on this tour.

We attended the Chicago show last night. In short, the band sounded solid. The crowd was so-so. We ended up with upper level seats and hardly anybody bothered to stand up at all through the show which I always find to be very lame. Bliss was a welcome surprise and Matt really put a lot of energy into it. Verona debut was wonderful, especially because it's my favorite on the new album. I could hardly believe my ears when the started playing Resistance but ok. Also maybe a bit odd that Thought Contagion was the only main survivor from ST (aside from a really pretty instrumental of The Dark Side). I think those two songs just fit in with the general theme of the new album and US audiences would know them. The Cherub Rock outro for the Chicago crowd was a nice touch too. The multiple playback interludes had a lot to do with changing the stage set-up between songs. I didn't preview much of the Mexican gigs so I don't know if the new backstage "characters" were a total surprise or not. Great show though. And FWIW, Evanescence kicked ass as an opener.

Verona is very much in the U2 vein. The dreamy layered production also reminds me of last year's Wolf Alice album, Blue Weekend. That said, it still manages to pinch a few recent Muse elements. The pulsing synths of Algorithm, the plucky guitar melody of Dead Inside, the earnest building power balladry of (gulp!) Guiding Light. Plus the underlying theme of the pandemic-romance lyrics seems to be that "Love is our Resistance!" 😅 Somehow, they fused all that into a really great track.

Definitely agree with all this. Those are some shit songs. 😅

I'm pretty close to you with that list but I'd move WOTP up a few notches and drop Compliance down there to take its place. WOTP should at least be fun in concert. I wasn't a fan of Compliance as a single and listening to it in the context of the album has not changed my opinion much.

The Beautiful People comparison is obvious, of course, but I can't listen to the verse without hearing Summertime Blues.

George Orwell's 1984 was a work of fiction but clearly a scathing commentary on real world institutions from a very specific point of view. The question remains. Is Matt trying to be cleverly observant or trite?

So it's a strange mash-up of Beautiful People and Summertime Blues. Kinda catchy but pretty lazy songwriting nonetheless.

Another forgettable single won't do much to improve attention spans and fan engagement.

A marbled double-vinyl.... Unless I'm missing something the only "double-vinyl" I can see is the bundle with the marbled and black versions of the same disc. Pretty misleading to refer to it as a marbled double-vinyl if that's the case.

I like that line. I might have to use it myself sometime. 👍 What happens when the album running time is already short and it still has songs that could've been cut completely? The first two released tracks are mediocre which means we'll be hoping for a half an hour of decent music at most.

I've been familiar with most of the B-sides and EP material in one form or another for a while. I can't say that I know much about anything that might have been previously available as bootlegs. I found the acoustic versions of Cave and Muscle Museum to be quite fascinating but I've always been a fan of the Unplugged genre.

Moving on to the Origin of Symmetry vinyl, I wouldn't say that the differences are as noticeable as they were with Showbiz. Which is probably for the better because, as has been mentioned previously, OoS really wasn't in serious need of remastering anyway. On first listen, I noticed the first significant differences during Citizen Erased. Comparing the vinyl remaster to a hi-res MQA stream on Tidal, the newer version seemed to have the bass pulled forward and a wider soundstage while the Tidal stream was more centered, louder and in-your-face so to speak. Comparing the LP to a hi-res stream might be too "apples and oranges" to be considered a real analysis of the remaster but subtle differences were there. Either way, the discs looked lovely once again.

I haven't had the time to check out the CD's or read through the book yet but Showbiz sounds great on vinyl. It's not a good basis for me to speak to the remastering because I've only ever heard the album digitally before. I can say that the sound is nice and clean. Some really hearty bass rumbles through the verses of Cave. Definitely more listenable than my old Showbiz CD. Falling Down sounded especially warm, full and bluesy. I kinda wish Muse had more songs in their catalogue with this feel. It looks real pretty on the turntable as well.

Clearly the high point of this clip was the epic fail trying to tear the cardboard open before opting for the much simpler pull-tab. 😂 Great job though. Mine just arrived an hour ago and I haven't gotten around to opening it yet. I'll definitely go for the pull tab though. Thanks for the instructional video.

This package looks really solid, obviously, but I would've preferred a hi-res download code to 9 CD's. Assuming that all the tracks end up on streaming services, I could even get by without the code. Still, it's great to see the material being remastered and released.

I haven't checked this forum or posted anything since before the ST Tour began. Even though I had tickets, I was not THAT stoked to see the show because I'm not really a fan of the new album and I felt let down by their performance on the Drones Tour. I figured that I would go into the show fresh and hope to be pleasantly surprised. Beyond a couple Twitter pics of the robot suit, the metal medley and talk of on-stage performers, I really didn't know a thing about the show before attending their gig in Detroit last week. To be honest, I was anticipating a bit of a disaster of excess and overkill. That said, it was kind of exciting going to a concert without knowing the set-list or seeing the visuals in advance for a change. At the end of the day, "pleasantly surprised" was a massive understatement! I thought that the concert was really great, in fact. The set-list was naturally quite predictable anyway but I was hyped when I heard the opening to Take A Bow. Was not expecting that at all after not personally hearing it even once over the past 3 tours. I was also totally caught off guard by the massive on-stage visitor during the metal medley which was actually really cool in itself. I mean, my Drones concert completely ignored Origin of Symmetry while this concert had Plug In Baby, and portions of Micro Cuts and New Born. That alone made it a better set-list, not to mention the fact that Undisclosed Desires and Resistance were finally put to bed. Mercy lives on but whatever. I can't say that the show changed my opinion much of the new album but it still was not what I had expected. My favorite song on ST has always been The Dark Side which I thought was pretty lacklustre live. On the other hand, I'm don't care for Propaganda nor Dig Down at all but I thought that they both came off nicely. The choice to perform the intimate gospel version of DD at the center stage was definitely the way to go. Algorithm was easily the best ST song for me with respect to the performance and impact of the visuals. Pressure was peppy enough, Break It To Me still does not do much for me and Thought Contagion was, well, Thought Contagion. I don't know that the choreographed performers added much to the show beyond the Algorithm routine but they didn't really detract either or look as corny as they could have. All the expected Muse standards sounded really good, in my opinion, and the pacing of the show was SO much better than the Drones concert that I attended. The crowd seemed more engaged and lively as well considering that the arena was only 2/3 full. The upper bowl was completely blacked out with curtains. As far as I'm concerned, it only meant that several thousand people missed their chance to catch a really awesome concert. Even though Muse didn't quite convince me that Simulation Theory is anything approaching a good album, they did restore my faith in them as a live act. Colour me impressed.

Count me in the "lol we'll see" category. Robots, "performers" and choreography at a Muse concert sounds like even odds to be either an idiosyncratic spectacle or a cringeworthy disaster. Possibly both at the same time. Adding my general apathy toward Simulation Theory to that, I'll say that I'm at best cautiously optimistic about seeing them in April. That said, I have the tickets and I'm sure it will all make for an interesting show.

I just hope that the robot suit is more technically sound that the drones were considering that the dildrone and one of the orbs crashed into the crowd at the show that I attended.