Psycho/Drones General Tour Discussion Thread

[serpentsatellite]

Like I said, Muse's show length measured by how long they're on stage is pretty meaningless when there's so much play back and downtime stretching that out.

I agree that number of songs isn't everything, but it's still very fair to say that Muse isn't playing what they should be at this point in their career, or compared to comparable bands, and they're fluffing up the gigs so they seem as long as they "should" be.

 

Again, though, that said, it is possible Matt just can't do it, I guess.

[Clunge]

They could stop switching guitars after nearly every single song. That would save about 10 minutes and no-one would notice the difference.

 

Also, all the playback and intro guff is just totally uneccessary - Dance Of The Knights (2 mins), Drones (2 mins), Drill Sergeant (30 secs), Isolated System (3 mins), Prelude (1 min), Munich Jam (2 mins), JFK (1 min), Interlude (30 secs), Drones again (1 min), Man With A Harmonica (2 mins).

 

You could literally cut ALL of that and play Dead Star, Butterflies And Hurricanes and an extra piano song instead, or any three songs of your liking.

[kueller]

Interlude is a nice transition into Hysteria and is actually an album track. Similar with JFK, at least when they went into a Drones song. And for some reason they stil haven't done Defector with it.

 

Overall it feels like going back to The Resistance Tour where they'd do things like play a riff before Time Is Running Out, then 3 riffs after. Now they do playbacks and instrumental jams. I'd even take the riffs really.

[Hat]

They could stop switching guitars after nearly every single song. That would save about 10 minutes and no-one would notice the difference.

 

Also, all the playback and intro guff is just totally uneccessary - Dance Of The Knights (2 mins), Drones (2 mins), Drill Sergeant (30 secs), Isolated System (3 mins), Prelude (1 min), Munich Jam (2 mins), JFK (1 min), Interlude (30 secs), Drones again (1 min), Man With A Harmonica (2 mins).

 

You could literally cut ALL of that and play Dead Star, Butterflies And Hurricanes and an extra piano song instead, or any three songs of your liking.

As it's been said though (mostly by me), they're there for a reason. There is no way Matt would even get through a gig without them. Well at least not without sounding like he's dying for the last 3 songs.

[Jobby]

Also, all the playback and intro guff is just totally uneccessary - Dance Of The Knights (2 mins), Drones (2 mins), Drill Sergeant (30 secs), Isolated System (3 mins), Prelude (1 min), Munich Jam (2 mins), JFK (1 min), Interlude (30 secs), Drones again (1 min), Man With A Harmonica (2 mins).

 

Let's not forget the Voodoo Child faffery and the bafflingly mandatory balloon popping (seriously, why do they insist on having everything popped before moving on?) Both of those are probably around 3/4 minutes alone.

 

I'd say they're adding it in to save Matt's voice but, iirc, there were plenty of gigs on the festival tour that had more songs and minimal playback/downtime between them.

[Hat]

Let's not forget the Voodoo Child faffery and the bafflingly mandatory balloon popping (seriously, why do they insist on having everything popped before moving on?) Both of those are probably around 3/4 minutes alone.

 

I'd say they're adding it in to save Matt's voice but, iirc, there were plenty of gigs on the festival tour that had more songs and minimal playback/downtime between them.

Important to note that pretty much all of those gigs had at least 2 days between them, with a few exceptions.

 

And if they were to replace the nonsense with actual songs, we would probably have the same number of songs as Download, but with shorter breaks between gigs and longer tours (I think?)

 

Meh I dunno. Maybe Matt is just lazy.

[BlueEyedFloozy]

How? At least 50% of that song's lyrical content is "Woohoo!"

 

He got the second verse mixed up with the first, shouted OH FUCK IT and then just bounced about giggling and woohooing for the rest of the time.

 

Have there been balloons at all the other gigs on this tour? We didn't get any in Cologne

[Claudia O]

It seems most of you think Matt is like 60 or older! Come on, he is in his late 30's.... i get a bit angry when I read that he can't do this and can't do that... Maybe he just doesn't want to?? I think he loves riffs and wankery with the guitar. If he would stretch a 3 min song to 10 min, like some rock bands used to do or jazz bands, it would be epic and I wouldn't complain or even think about which other songs could've been played instead! Stop complaining all the time

 

Rant over for now.

[kueller]

He's very noticeably been struggling vocally.

[Claudia O]

Yes, I noticed it as well. But I meant being on stage without pauses and stuff.

[Hat]

It seems most of you think Matt is like 60 or older! Come on, he is in his late 30's.... i get a bit angry when I read that he can't do this and can't do that... Maybe he just doesn't want to?? I think he loves riffs and wankery with the guitar. If he would stretch a 3 min song to 10 min, like some rock bands used to do or jazz bands, it would be epic and I wouldn't complain or even think about which other songs could've been played instead! Stop complaining all the time

 

Rant over for now.

They're not extending songs and doing improv etc though, they're literally using playback tracks (some even twice) and stop in the middle of a song (CE) which has been played just fine from start to finish for 15 years now.

 

And Matt is barely even doing riffs and wankery anymore, he even gives up on using the guitar in certain songs, and walks off stage during the playback and jams.

 

I think you need a reality check. Muse aren't improvising, they're wasting time. And we're giving theories as to why this might be.

[Claudia O]

I said "if they...." not that they do it.

[kueller]

I never got the notice they were doing the Citizen pause intentionally now. The fuck? Not that long though.

[Hat]

I said "if they...." not that they do it.

But since they're not doing it, I don't see how that's a defense. IF they were doing improvs, that would probably be cool. But for someone who loves riffs and wankery, he spends an awfully short time doing it, considering he doesn't even have a guitar for songs like Starlight, Dead Inside half of the time, Blackout, Guiding Light and Follow Me when they were played, and probably something more that I'm forgetting.

 

And for someone who loves riffs and wankery, it's weird that they don't even do the 5 minute riffing after one or two of their heavier songs, but instead Matt walks off stage for a playback interlude.

 

There's just no excuse for it, and it's a very fair thing to complain about.

[Claudia O]

Cause it's rather a show than a rock concert? where lots of things are calculated rather than spontaneous? We'll see what happens at the festivals.

[Hat]

I never got the notice they were doing the Citizen pause intentionally now. The fuck? Not that long though.

[Hat]

Cause it's rather a show than a rock concert? where lots of things are calculated rather than spontaneous? We'll see what happens at the festivals.

Yeah that explains the lack of improvising, which wasn't the issue anyway. And why would that change during the festivals? Muse have never been an improv band.

 

If you're talking about the other stuff, riffing after heavy songs has rarely been spontaneous anyway, so that could still be part of the show. And letting go of the guitar is purely down to Matt's personal choice.

[Claudia O]

They won't have programmed Drones, no rotating stage, maybe not so much lightning stuff at festivals?

[kueller]

 

Yeah I saw the footage already to confirm it for myself. Strange.

[Hat]

They won't have programmed Drones, no rotating stage, maybe not so much lightning stuff at festivals?

Yeah definitely. I just don't see why you mentioned it Oh well.

Yeah I saw the footage already to confirm it for myself. Strange.

Yeah I thought as much. But I thought it would be good to get the links on here anyway.

[kueller]

Very little of the concert is tied to pre-planning. They have the drones for a few songs, spinning stage for a couple of songs, The Handler, Undisclosed Desires, and then The Globalist's monster visuals. The rest is some of the most stripped down arena work they've done in years. Really just standard lights and videos on the small ring of screens. Not even things like spontaneous stage control, CO2, lasers, and other things they've done. It opens up for a lot.

[Claudia O]

Yeah definitely. I just don't see why you mentioned it Oh well.

 

Maybe I write a bit out of context, sorry just noticed

 

I meant Matt hopefully won't walk off stage that often at the festivals when I mentioned the festivals first here.

[Claudia O]

Very little of the concert is tied to pre-planning. They have the drones for a few songs, spinning stage for a couple of songs, The Handler, Undisclosed Desires, and then The Globalist's monster visuals. The rest is some of the most stripped down arena work they've done in years. Really just standard lights and videos on the small ring of screens. Not even things like spontaneous stage control, CO2, lasers, and other things they've done. It opens up for a lot.

 

I recognized some steam in fan videos..or someone told me ..

[Jovatov]

If there's complaints about Muse stretching time because of changing guitars, you should never go to a Mumford and Sons concert.

I saw them last year, and everytime they switched a guitar it took them at least a minute, if not more.

 

They also bantered a lot more, with one exceptionally long break with one of the band members trying to come up with dutch football players that played in the Premier League.

 

Compared to that, Muse plays a really tight show with one song following the other. And barely any banter, which to me is a good thing.

[ryanp16]

For some inexplicable reason reading that reminded me of the time Trent Reznor took a shit in one of Muse's flight cases.