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2019.06.01 - London, UK - London Stadium


Jobby

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3 hours ago, Gemsy said:

Legged it during last knights chorus, stomped it back to car in plenty of time, thinking omg yes M8 we're gonna avoid the rush... took us two fucking hours just to be able to move our car. Didn't get home till 3am.

 

 Totally worth it

Ah, see I blamed me not jetting during Knights for missing my coach but nice to know it might not have made a difference 🙄

28 minutes ago, matilda8 said:

Was there a crush before people even got to the barrier? This is awful! 😡

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Yes. For some reason, London Stadium’s management thought the safest option to stop evil evil runners was to stop large amounts of eager people in tight, claustrophobic clusters around 9-10 separate times on the way in and only let them move at a snail’s pace. Even on steep steps. Funnily enough, this lead to a lot of people tripping over feet, getting crushed and some even falling which, in such tight spaces, is maybe a smidge more dangerous than just letting some people freely run or jog into open space. It also meant you didn’t really get a choice where you went as you got corralled by the staff in front/direction of the cluster, so I at least queued from 6am to get bugger all of a decent spot 🙃 People also got through bag checks without even being searched ‘cos they had no control over the initial flow of people, anything coulda got through.

Genius set up but hey, at least the staff could have a chuckle when I pointed these things out.

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5 hours ago, TheSmallPrint02 said:

Same here. We were stuck at the top of the Westfield car park for 2 hours.

Same! But when it moved it moved fast, so do they block off the top half till it's completely clear or something... Seems an odd method to me

Edited by Gemsy
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Fourth Muse gig after Emirates 2013, SBE 2017 (🧡) and Reading 2017, and this time I brought a friend along who only knew one Muse song before yesterday. Happily that song was Undisclosed Desires, so while it's not one of my faves her joy when they played it was really nice to watch!

I remember last year I was thinking of booking London, Bristol, Manchester and maybe a European date too, but given the lack of setlist rotation that I've read I'll probably save my money. Even so, Bliss being performed was a huge moment for me - until yesterday it was the most-played Muse song I'd never seen live, and from my favourite album of theirs too! So now it's 'Resistance' (19th most played) that's next on the list, although I can give or take that one. As I wasn't aware of the Houston Jam I did briefly lose my shit when Futurism began, thinking they were just going to go completely nuts and play a ton of random rarities, but while it was only a snippet it was still nice to hear. As was New Born, which back at SBE I didn't appreciate as much as I hoped as I was too knackered after Showbiz, but here even a segment of it sounded absolutely immense and made up for my disappointment of missing it by a day at Emirates.

Crowd was disappointing but I've only ever enjoyed a Muse crowd at SBE, and this was the second best out the four as there were at least a few megafans near me who sung along to every word. For most of the gig I was next to a group of people who stood completely utterly still for the entire show, with their only movement being for about 30 seconds during Starlight when one held up their phone and filmed for a bit, then they all glumly left during Stockholm Syndrome - no idea what they were expecting but they clearly didn't get it. Setlist was ok - no real surprises other than those already mentioned, but the mix of old and new was good even though it was my first Muse gig to sadly have no Showbiz-era songs.

A fun evening and gave me a bit more love for the new album, as with T2L after Emirates and Drones after Reading. Hope they don't randomly add a crazy rarity at Bristol or Manchester as I'll feel gutted for not going :p

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Bliss was nice, Take A Bow is always brilliant, Psycho and Break It To Me early doors were good. Plug In Baby got a huge reaction, so did Hysteria (the bass was ENORMOUS in the intro, the most enormous I can recall). But srsly, that middle section is absolute GARBAGE. UD and Madness in a row? Mercy AND Starlight? Even Time Is Running Out, a song I do genuinely love, may as well be on a tape, it sounds IDENTICAL every night.

I still hate the medley, it's just totally unnecessary. Pick two/three of those songs and play them in full. Algorithm alt intro and Algorithm in the encore doesn't work. Just open with Algorithm proper and be done with it. Thought Contagion still sucks absolute donkey balls. Dreadful song.

I actually enjoyed Dig Down, the acoustic/gospel version is really nice. I enjoyed what they did with it. Shame they didn't use the b-stage for 3/4 songs like that for a bit of intimacy, although it's totally apeing when Coldplay have done so well for years (and so much better than Muse do).

Dark Side was actually really great, love that song. Pressure as de facto opener after the Algorithm playback is weak. It's just not a song you can get very stuck into. And as for all the other bells and whistles, well, they're the exact same bells and whistles that were adorning their sets 10-15 years ago. It all feels stale/formulaic.

Hysteria > Back In Black. Medley / drop-D finale > Headup. Close Encounters > Supermassive. Etc. And the less said about Matt's stupid glasses (two sets!), LED suits, gauntlet glove, singing to the skull, giving up guitar/piano bits and so on. It just cheapens everything for me.

Bleh. I knew I'd be humbug about this. And it's because I love this band - I know they can do so much better. This I feel is their poorest stadium production by some considerable distance. Also, why make the main screen convex? It means if you're at the slightest angle, you see across most of it rather than look at it. Such a weird choice.

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You have to love that new Close Encounters though, probably the coolest ‘gimmick’y thing I’ve seen them do.

Was neat to finally see Matt return the air raid PIB intro before doing the standard call and response as well. Don’t think I’ve seen that before and it was a big thing when I was first getting into them ❤️

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5 hours ago, Jobby said:

People also got through bag checks without even being searched ‘cos they had no control over the initial flow of people, anything coulda got through.

We came in at about 7.00 and they weren't even searching bags thoroughly then. I had a big-ish bag with a couple of things I knew weren't allowed (can of energy drink, can of hairspray), and the dude literally took one brief look inside and sent me on my way. Then I got to the guy with the standing wristbands, held out my ticket, he didn't even look at it,  and just said "that says standing, right?" - of course I said "yes"! It actually WAS a standing ticket but I reckon I could have blagged a wristband out of him anyway. I also can't remember anyone checking my wristband during the multiple times I went up/down from pitch level to toilets and drinks.

Weird that security were so lax on entry yet so intense with crowd control. We left half way through Knights and breezed straight through the groups of security with stop/go signs but it was SO tightly organised that it was almost scary.

Either way, that 'moving barricade' thing they did with letting people onto the pitch was just overkill. It's obvious what they were trying to achieve, and the health & safety perspective is understandable - after all, when in the history of ever has anyone at a gig ever slowed down when being told not to run? - but the amount of manpower that went into it is ridiculous. It also raises questions over whether it would've been safe if people had started pushing... presumably they would have just broken the chain and let people through, but you don't know. It also pained me to see people aiming for the middle, thinking they were getting the best spot, when the entrances to the golden circle were at the sides.

I've never seen anything like that before anyway... will be interesting to see if they do it again in Bristol on Wednesday, or if it was just a London Stadium thing.

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I couldn't get tickets using the members pre sale this time, so ended up seating in the Am-Ex allocated area.  It had no atmosphere at all - all corporate types and families taken for the concert experience rather than Muse fans.  Took the shine off the concert - never seen so many people getting up for drinks/food etc  and started leaving around 10pm - Musers usually stay in place for most of the act. Bliss  was great to hear but as others have said, the set is a little stale and I didn't enjoy the distance from the stage in such a large ground.  - although I agree  that the band really seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage.   Best concert I've been to was Horseguards parade and Dublin O2- both smaller venues - can't wait for my next concert!.  Took ages to get out - got home to south coast around 2am.

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13 hours ago, matilda8 said:

Just awful, and so dangerous.....could’ve been catastrophic. Idiots! 😡

It was bloody terrifying being in it. I was at the front of the crowd coming in at the top of that video, was an absolute nightmare.

The actual gig, however, was fucking amazing. As was Tom Morello! Bless the security guards for trying to calm down a moshpit during Killing In The Name. No prizes for guessing which bit they tried it in either. Such fun 😄

Edited by BlueEyedFloozy
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Re lax bag checks.  I had food and drinks in a carrier bag on the back of my wheelchair and they were going to let me through.  I told them about it and they confiscated the sandwich. So how small IS a small amount of food? Luckily we had Nakd bars as we had a really late lunch and didn't have time to eat again before the gig. No way was I going to eat the junk on sale inside.

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On 6/2/2019 at 3:55 PM, Gemsy said:

Legged it during last knights chorus, stomped it back to car in plenty of time, thinking omg yes M8 we're gonna avoid the rush... took us two fucking hours just to be able to move our car. Didn't get home till 3am.

Ugh - we were on level 9 of the car park 😐  After last year's experience getting out, we'd decided that we'd head into Westfield and eat after the show, rather than wait in the car.  In the end, a prompt exit from the GA seating at the end of Knights and a dash across the bridge got us up to our floor before anyone else seemed to have left, so we gave it a go.  We made it down to the barriers before the traffic came to a near standstill.  It was clear that it was all the pedestrian management that was causing gridlock - but were out in 5 mins.  5 mins later back to the car and we'd have been 2 hours in there.  Felt a bit too smug being back home before midnight....

But yes, a more hideous venue and logistics is hard to imagine.

17 hours ago, kim.askew said:

I couldn't get tickets using the members pre sale this time, so ended up seating in the Am-Ex allocated area.  It had no atmosphere at all - all corporate types and families taken for the concert experience rather than Muse fans.  Took the shine off the concert - never seen so many people getting up for drinks/food etc  and started leaving around 10pm - Musers usually stay in place for most of the act.

Such a shame - it did look dead over there.  GA seating was great - everyone on their feet from the start, and decent engagement.  Worst too for you was that there was no rush for tickets in the end - you could even have picked up the £30 GA Twickets tickets last week.

Like a lot of gigs, though, I enjoyed it a lot - but the memories mature and improve afterwards.  And, interestingly, a 5* review from the Guardian

And here's a handful of pics from me:

P1530323.thumb.JPG.affc48317e8b3a99a8c51463d338eef9.JPGP1530585.JPG.14f96b83895e2602dcf561d05ea69d1c.JPGP1530664.JPG.5184b385ae3a1f2b38d567d967aa54fd.JPGP1530598.thumb.JPG.0ab4566b3ebd27d2c876a1a0229fe433.JPGP1530740.JPG.395feb2bef6e73bb29829b8791ea6429.JPGP1530971.JPG.367db61734d3c6d51af750b31ec6675b.JPGP1530713.JPG.e1503aacc9172d25be6f59086af1877c.JPGP1540019.JPG.25bff5e405591ebb8d9270c6a4d41986.JPGP1530847.thumb.JPG.8da3c73880c2f89dcbbad2c1cfca084c.JPGP1530904.JPG.b81ca53522fdb84fb3d42160c596f670.JPGP1540572.thumb.JPG.ebe50709e02bb71b7757ae7bb0eafefb.JPGP1540609.JPG.02b0c758fe55cee7523ec1facf5c6024.JPGP1540885.JPG.c03bb8e9022b54c4b72c8dbea7866636.JPG

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Awesome concert!! I came from Australia to see it and I was in heaven!

Bliss and Knights of Cydonia were the highlights but every song was amazingly great! I loved the venue and transport was easy to and from Lancaster Gate. 

The crowd atmosphere was fantastic. Definitely worth the journey from Australia!! The highlight of my trip! 

Does anyone know how many were there?

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On 3/13/2019 at 11:43 AM, muse samuse said:

Ticket purchased and flight and hotel booked for my first European MUSE stadium gig - Passport and Oyster card ready to go

First MUSE concert attended:  FedExField, Landover, MD (Wash DC suburb) in September 2009 supporting U2 -  Opened with  Knights of Cydonia and closed with Plug In Baby  and also played one piano track United States of Eurasia. The playback Intro track was Dance of the Knights/Montagues and Capulets (Prokofiev).

First MUSE shows attended in the UK:  O2 Arena, London, UK in October 2012

 

The gig was ace and full of quality unlike the UCL final in Madrid.  I rate it as the best one of the now eleven MUSE shows I have attended. I shed tears of joy when 'Bliss' was played.  I heard a teaser snippet of this track at the Target Center in Minneapolis, MN  in October 2010 and was hoping to to watch and hear the band perform it live at least once and now that wish has been granted.  Older songs like PiB, TIRO, Hysteria, SMBH, and Starlight appeared to get the best responses from the 60,000+ concert-goers at this Olympic venue in East London.  I arrived late to the stadium so I only caught the last 15 minutes of Tom Morello's performance but I enjoyed his riffs and guitar masterclass skills along with his political commentary regarding Trump and Farage.

I concur with Mark Beaumont's concert review in The Guardian below except I liked the gospel version of DD:

Muse review – dizzying rock spectacle for the machine age

5 / 5 stars 5 out of 5 stars.

London Stadium

"Neon robots, isolation-suit acrobats, 23rd-century cops … the glam sci-fi fantasists throw the lot at their extravagantly dystopian stadium romp.

‘We are caged in simulations,” reads the gigantic, stage-wide convex screen as a legion of neon robots with trombones herald Matt Bellamy rising from the centre of the stadium with android fanfares, as if the AI have arisen and stolen the jobs of the nearest marching band. So have Muse been a glitch in the matrix all along?

They always seemed a spectacular rock’n’roll programming error: three Teignmouth lads who became superstars by deciphering the malevolent sociopolitical virus code of the 21st century and delivering their findings in a blitz of operatic space rock, dystopian stage fantasies and solos resembling a cyborg Queen ferociously malfunctioning.

Certainly the tour for 2015’s Drones – when remote-controlled spheres strafed the stands and diaphanous screens stretched the length of arenas – was so immersive that it’s surely only a matter of technology before they go fully virtual and play stadium gigs in your squat. Meantime, they bring the retro-futurist 80s teen flick unrealities of their VR-themed  album Simulation Theory to life.

Donning glowing glasses throughout, Bellamy plays an avatar being hunted through the machine. Space zombies chase him along the ego ramp throughout synth-rock anthem Thought Contagion. Acrobats in isolation suits walk vertically down the screen during the Arabian-inflected Break It To Me, tracking him with flashlights. A 23rd-century task force, wielding steam-throwers, invade the stage for Propaganda, the sound of Prince being crushed beneath a grooving Terminator.

These breezy, synthetic new tunes interface seamlessly with Uprising, Supermassive Black Hole and Psycho – tracks that always sounded like glam being shot around the Large Hadron Collider – and the first hour zips by. A plodding gospel Dig Down hobbles the pace, but there’s enough momentum to sci-fi anthems such as Mercy and pop-metal classics Hysteria, Time Is Running Out and hellfire opera Take A Bow – sung by Bellamy to a silver skull like a Spielberg Hamlet – to ensure the most dizzying and future-facing of stadium spectacles.

At its climax, a giant alien borg bursts from the stage, flailing at the air, growing angrier as Stockholm Syndrome mashes magnificently into Reapers and New Born. Keep telling yourself: it’s only a simulation…"

Edited by muse samuse
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I've been reading through a lot of these posts and it's making me excited and a little anxioius lol. I can't get there till 4 to queue and I've bought Premium tickets. Does anyone know what this means with regards to the Gold Circle? I would like to think this means I'll automatically get in that section or do you have to go somewhere else once you've collected your lunchbox etc to be upgraded?

I'm going to the Manchester gig on Saturday so I really hope the weather sorts itself out too : / 

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3 hours ago, Holl86 said:

lunchbox etc

You mean you get fed also?!!!

You're likely to get straight into the section although I'm not sure when the gates open. If they allow randoms without VIP access (like me!) into the GC then you may not be guaranteed a premium space if the gates have opened by the time you get there.

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LOL sadly no, Muse thought it would be a great idea to give us a lunchbox and poster to carry around 🤣🤣

When you say guaranteed a premium space do you mean in the Gold Circle? The e mail I got said early entry was 4.30-5. I'm glad I'm not getting there any later than 4 if the entry organisation is a bit hit & miss lol. Hopefully the rain will put some people off queuing really early!

As you've been before, where would you say is the best place to stand if you want to get close and have a good view? I'm thinking of standing to the leftside to hopefully be near Matt :) 

 

 

 

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Once you're in the gc, you can't cross sides because of the B stage ramp. The entrance may not be obvious, there were a lot of stewards who looked they were blocking it in London but they just let you walk past and you get a wristband on entry.

You'll actually be too close to appreciate all the lights etc. We settled for halfway between the stages and a few rows back from ramp to get the best all round view

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This was such a good gig, even if I ached from the mosh pit for a few days after! I loved the setlist, especially Bliss and I swear BITM had slightly heavier guitars live. I wish they'd do some full classics rather than the medley, but as at RAH I'd rather the medley than nothing. I hadn't seen Tom Morello announced so when he appeared in the crowd it was pure disbelief and such an amazing atmosphere.

The venue was terrible, and getting out was awful too. The queue leaving was held at a standstill multiple times, it took half an hour to get to Stratford Intl, and there was no queue or crowd once the station route split from the tube route.

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On 6/10/2019 at 1:45 PM, BlueEyedFloozy said:

I forgot to show you this. My first gig souvenir, from Matt :matt:

Actually how

I’d love a pick so much but figure there’s literally no point asking for one ‘cos, once he throws it, the wind’s taking it anywhere. Then obvs your only other option is being the one hand in tens of thousands that could catch one randomly. Seen crew hand them out sometimes but I’m always too nervous to chat to them lmao.

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On 6/11/2019 at 7:55 PM, Jobby said:

Actually how

I’d love a pick so much but figure there’s literally no point asking for one ‘cos, once he throws it, the wind’s taking it anywhere. Then obvs your only other option is being the one hand in tens of thousands that could catch one randomly. Seen crew hand them out sometimes but I’m always too nervous to chat to them lmao.

I was the one hand in ten thousand! I was on GA barrier and Matt threw his remaining plectrums out at the end from the B stage, and one hit me square in the palm of the hand; it fell on the floor and no one could reach because of the barrier so I screamed "THAT is MINE!!" at the security guard and he picked it up and gave it me back :D

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On 6/2/2019 at 2:33 AM, musefanlondon said:

My god the London Stadium is garbage. For a stadium opened this decade, there is really nothing impressive about it at all. Cramped concourses, short and wide inside, and one hell of a bastard walk back to the tube. I hope Muse never play here again. Probably second only to Alexandra Palace as my least favourite venue.

Aside from that, the show was fantastic. Being my first time seeing Muse since 2017, it was great to hear all the new songs live, and all the other stuff sounded great. Really enjoyed the visuals too. Ace show.

Yeah... the pictures show it all stage at one end and most seating is miles away ... the London Stadium is just too big and shallow seated for anyone to be really close and see.  Found myself watching the giant (wasn't that ace!?!) screen more.  Matt said it beats Wembley!!??  Well please don't use this stadium again - Wembley would have been better!

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