A Night Out with The HOchieS, Part II: It Said MSG but We Ended Up in Canada?

It's very rare I find myself down in the 30s, which may explain why I have not had an amazing Korean food experience yet in K-Town.

Chances are if you find me in the K'Hood, it's due to the fact that I'm off dragging a poor soul to Madison Square Garden.

Friday Night's Victim was H1 (as previously posted) and Friday Night's Instrument of Torture?

Yes, yes. Again.  If anyone's keeping track, you know what number venture this was.

I make no apologies for my obsession with the band.  I mean, I might apologise to H1 but that's 'might'.

Having not seen them on tour for The Resistance and fully admitting that this is not the greatest album by my boys, I opted to go anyway.

Some may also be keeping track and say, "But...you have tickets to see them at Wembley Stadium in September, don't you?"

And to you I say, that is partially true.  The tickets are not in hand, and a trip to London has not been set in stone as nothing in life is.

Others who may be keeping track may say, "But...you saw them in September last...wasn't that for The Resistance?"

And to you others I say, that is partially true.  However, I saw them open for U2 and while they were not horrible, they were not on a show of their own.

And what a show at MSG on Friday.

The Lowlamps:

All shows no matter how fantastic, have lowlamps.  These may not be the band but the influencing factors and once people are involved, there is always some shart to deal with.

1. Matt Pinfield.  Huh? Yeah, you read right.  Matt.  Pinfield.  As someone said to me today, "I don't know why he is the pinnacle representative and guru on all things rock.  How did that happen?"  Indeed.  I was never a fan, and never offended but yeah, I was a bit on Friday by his appearance at my show.  He was there to introduce MUSE.  He was there to tell us to get back to our seats so as to not miss the first minute of the show.  I was there to wonder why the hell MUSE needed an introduction and to curse their management.

2. Point 2 follows from the first.  The whole night felt a little bit strange.  Section L40 was a let down.  The blood was already angry that I had GA tickets in hand and was forced to give them up, but then to be put in a section of...odd people.

While I am really happy that Muse are gaining popularity over here, I am not okay with the fact that Twilight fan girls who love sparkly vampires (such things do not exist - um, I mean sparkly vampires, of course.  But vampires, they're real), show up to my concert because they heard Super Massive Black Hole on a soundtrack for that waste of time movie.

I am not so much of an ass as to hate on people for being introduced to music via a movie.  Why, I myself have a fascination with Lou Reed thanks to David Lynch and there are countless artists I appreciate by way of thanks to Quentin Tarantino.  So no, a good song is a good song regardless of where it comes from.

What I am an ass about is having to sit there and listen to tweens discuss a band who just shy of being 1 year older than they have been on the earth talk about how they didn't know that Muse had more songs and are 'like, an actual group".

Maybe it's just me, but I love Wikipedia and will only show my ignorance to those who know me well and I can't be bothered to do research on the internet.

 The dude in white? One fool who was having a blast.  

I'm not sure what he was dancing to but he was not as bad

as that girl in the back who was just incapable of 

hearing tunes outside of her head.  At least he was having good fun.

3. So yes, Section L40.  Back to those fools.  Some of them were there before.  Some were fans before and still are.  And those people judged me.  I wasn't unhappy.  I was taking in the show for the brilliant spectacle it was.  I was silently muttering that while good live, some of the material was just not great.  I was also really hating on Matt for giving me a new song i.e. "Guiding Light".  That song is by far the WORST Muse song in the history of Muse songs and a top 50 in songs I've heard in my life.

I am a Muse fan but I am not stupid enough to gush about everything they do.  I am allowed to hate things they do.  If a song's not good, it's not good.

As H1 said, chances are I've probably seen the band more than most people in my section put together, so don't look at me like I'm a hater and spent $50 bucks to be a bad seed.

4. Point 3 just leads into the 4th.  Westchester Kids.  I spent my hard-earned money to be there as I'm sure many others did but I'm fairly certain a great number of them were Westchester Kids who were let out of the house on their parents' money.  It was sad and embarrassing.  More importantly, it was really annoying.  Oh Boobey-Head, don't you be a WCK.  I might pay for your concert tickets in the future but act right out there and on your train ride home.  No one likes a rude, snotty, therefore ugly child.

5. My physical seat.  I couldn't see Matt's face, or Dom's.  or Chris' (don't care as much there, but I'm just saying).  It may be that I am stupid enough to think Bells is cute (H1 finds him hid. but hey, he's a nerd with a seemingly adorable persona and that's why I love him), so it makes me sad when I can't see his face properly.  Or when I can't see Dom's hobbitry in action.  Or Chris'...I don't know...Chris'...something...rabble...rabble.

6. Silversun Pickups.  What a nightmare. It's true that Seether will always be the number 1 'big band' nightmare to open for a main act we've seen, but SSP were pretty damned boring.  I didn't actually hear the comparison to Smashing Pumpkins and sometimes, I don't know why people insist on comparing some bands to another but whatever the case, they sucked.  They were slow.  It was one long, boring song.  Their sound was awful and while I kinda like their personalities, I mostly think they sucked as an opener and I had no interest to get spin any of their tunes after the fact.

Did I mention I'm the better vocalist on "Lazy Eye" in Rock Band? Yep.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

7. A lack of good pictures.  Due to the fact that my point and shoot is good for only close range type deals, I once again walked out of a concert with shart for photos.  The part that really boils the blood? When you see WCKs walking out of MSG with their Nikon DSLRs.  I mean, WTF.  You'd be damned sure mine would be confiscated, but nooooo.  Not a WCK.  Psh.  I wonder if I can feign ignorance at WS in September?  I don't like to eff with Ukkers though.

8. Scary eyeballs.  The last time I saw scary giant eyeballs was at YYY.  I honestly thought I'd never have to see those again.  Then I heard rumours of the traditional confetti filled white balls at all Muse shows being giant eyeballs filled with confetti instead.  Sure enough...terror!

9. Due to height issues, Matt could not very well throw away the megaphone during "Feeling Good'.  That saddens me and every time that thing isn't flung away, I feel distraught.  There will be a next time, I suppose.

The Highlights

1. Matt.  Dom.  and yes, even Chris.  Muse perform like no other and while that's just a redundant thing to say, having established in my mind and many others world-wide that they are Best Live Act (not this year according to voters on NME - that belongs to Arctic Monkeys and that's BS!), it just needs to be said again and again and again.  If you haven't seen Muse live yet, really...you need to.  That way I can finally shut up.

2. The stage.  Now, I knew all about the pillars.  I won't say much else for fear TD5 may read this and have a spoil coming to him (provided of course, they do the same format at WS though I doubt it).  So, for me...I was not as impressed with the pillars as I should have been.  And who am I kidding? The pictures will spoil it for TD5 anyway.  That aside, that was one hella' crazy light show! Matt freakin' blinded us with some sort of space laser flashlight, the bastard.

3. The sound.  I have never before, had the misfortune of coming out of a concert feeling slightly deafened.  For all my short years concert-going now and listening to my music with headphones in on the daily, I actually pride myself on being able to hear fairly well.  Well, not only was I unfortunate to leave there deaf, but it happened during the show.  I couldn't really hear very well.  It was loud.  I really wish I got my "Turn it up to 11" t-shirt to represent what Muse did.  They were loud and clear.  The sound was amazing and I don't think it's ever sounded that great in MSG before.  Well you know, save 2007 when I heard them perform "Apocalypse Please".

4. "Unnatural Selection".  It always seems to happen to me... the one song I want to hear, is always the one that's sure to mess up somehow.  No matter though.  That song is bad-assed and I will patiently wait for them to enhance it somehow as they did with "Assassin".  I think that time will come or here's thinking it SHOULD.

5. "Helsinki Jam".  I'm so used to Muse just tearing through their songs without a breather that I was shocked when Matt left to let Dom and Chris do their thing.  It was probably the coolest thing all evening, honestly.  Those two KILLED it, but especially Dom.  Love that boy! He may not be my Agile Beast but as H1 says, he's a Sexy Beast and his drumming is ace too.

6. The Opening Techno segment.  It went on for a little too long and was not as cool as WS Opening but I did enjoy the sound and the visuals to an extent.

7. The kicking away of eyeballs? Nice.  Also, Matt's fondness for stabbing the balloons with his guitar as they get close to him...always a plus.

8. Oh yeah! I got to see the "Starlight" space ship again from Wembley Arena! They did not show it during "Starlight" though, but it was still as space-invader like and cute as I remember.

9.  Ah, strut my boy.  Matt's always strutting and it cracks me up every single time.

He's not strutting here...

The MUSE at Madison Square Garden, NYC on 03/05/2010 Set List:

1. Uprising
   
2. Resistance
   
3. New Born + Headup riff
   
4. Map of the Problematique + Who Knows Who riff
   
5. Supermassive Black Hole
6. Guiding Light
7. Interlude + Hysteria
   
8. Nishe (personal note: awesome)
9. United States of Eurasia
10. Take a Bow tease + Feeling Good
11. Helsinki Jam
12. Undisclosed Desires
13. MK ULTRA
    
14. Starlight
15. Plug In Baby
    
16. Time Is Running Out
17. Unnatural Selection
    
    
    
    
    

    Encore

18. Exogenesis: Symphony Part I (Overture)
19. Stockholm Syndrome + War Within a Breath riff + riff + riff
    
20. Man with a Harmonica intro + Knights of Cydonia

Memorable Conversation of the Evening:


H1: Where am I?
Or 2: What do you mean?
H1: I thought this was MSG! ::points to the ceiling::

Or 2: Ugh! No wonder the crowd sucks in here! I thought this was America! Turns out we're in Canada!