Concert review: Muse was big on theatrics, short on soul at AAC

by Thor Christensen

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Sounding an awful lot like Bono, Bellamy alternated between a falsetto and a torchy croon.

DALLAS — The sum of Muse’s musical influences doesn’t add up to a whole lot of anything. But in concert, that’s beside the point.

Performing to a big crowd Wednesday night at American Airlines Center, the English rock band put on the kind of bombastic, eye-popping concert that works just fine in a hockey arena. The trio, led by singer-guitarist Matthew Bellamy, performed amid a visual feast of kaleidoscopic lights, lasers, and spinning drum platforms -- all time-honored traditions in arena rock.

Their best trick came as a pyramid video screen came apart and morphed into dozens of old TV sets floating around the stage projecting different images. As a piece of apocalyptic eye candy, it was pretty sweet.

The closer you listened to Muse’s ostentatious music, however, the less interesting the show became. Borrowing way too heavily from U2, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and Metallica, the group came off like a human iPod shuffle: Don’t care for Metallica? Just wait three minutes and Muse will now attempt to sound like Coldplay.

To the group’s credit, it did it all with air-tight musicianship and no shortage of melodies. “Madness,” from its six and latest disc, The 2nd Law, was a catchy slice of electro-pop a la U2’s “Lemon.” Bassist Christopher Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard thrashed with total precision throughout the show and had fans pogo-dancing to their galloping rhythms.

But the concert seemed to get more histrionic by the song. It takes guts to write Orwellian lyrics in a world full of silly love songs, but Muse too often erred on the side of grandiosity: “Come ride with my through the veins of history!” Bellamy bellowed with a straight face in “Knights of Cydonia.”

Sounding an awful lot like Bono, Bellamy alternated between a falsetto and a torchy croon. But where Bono sings with drama, Bellamy often intoned his lyrics like an overwrought Shakespearean actor.

When it came time for a guitar solo, Bellamy sprinted to the very tip of the stage and collapsed to his knees in perfect arena-rock fashion. Yet like too much of Muse’s music, his solos were big and blustery, but short on soul.

Thor Christensen is a Dallas freelance writer.

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