Ten albums in, most bands touring arenas settle comfortably into an autopilot routine. The setlist becomes an orderly shuffle of undeniable anthems, usually joined by two or three recent singles to justify the outing. Muse decided against that predictable path at Manchester's Co-op Live on Thursday night. Opening the UK and European leg of their tour for The Wow! Signal, the trio arrived with a thoroughly overhauled visual setup and an opening statement that leaned heavily into unfamiliar territory.
After testing initial material across North America during the summer, the band brought out the complete, expanded staging they had talked about ahead of the tour. The entire presentation leans into the extraterrestrial concepts behind their June album. Suspended directly above the main stage, an overhead lighting rig is assembled to look like the underside of a hovering saucer. Behind the band, a massive V-shaped video screen projects visuals while bordered on both flanks by dense arrays of lights. Extending out into the floor, a long runway leads to a circular secondary stage in the center of the venue, cutting straight through the standing audience.
The fifteen-song set began not from the primary stage, but from that central satellite platform. Matt Bellamy started the night positioned inside an intricate sphere of LED lights, which slowly moved upward to enclose him as the first sounds rang out. At the same time, a circular ring of lights dropped from the ceiling over the main platform, sweeping laser patterns across the arena seats. Rather than leaning on an established favorite to warm up the crowd, Muse opened with three straight tracks from The Wow! Signal. Hexagon and Unravelling, both introduced during the summer dates in America, framed the live premiere of The Sickness In You & I.
Fresh material remained at the core of the show throughout the rest of the night. The band worked through Cryogen, Be With You, and Nightshift Superstar, alongside a live debut for The Dark Forest. The visual work on that track proved to be some of the night's most effective. Video feeds of the band were pushed out to the outer edges of the display, leaving the central screen free for an animation of an astronaut floating untethered through space, thrown violently across the screen by competing gravitational forces.
Familiar catalogue standards were still part of the running order, with Hysteria, Supermassive Black Hole, Plug In Baby, and Uprising providing the expected arena weight. Even with those present, the trio made space for several odd turns and reworks. Kill or Be Killed appeared as a shortened version reimagined by Fellsman and Tiley, using taped artificial intelligence vocals while bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard anchored the rhythm live. The band also added an instrumental take on Algorithm, an extended remix of the Drones prelude track [JFK], and Bellamy's composition Hanging Out In Victory Square, written with Ilan Eshkeri.
Heading into a large-scale arena run with this many untested songs and unusual arrangements is a distinct choice. By letting new compositions drive the performance and reshaping older tracks, Muse used the Manchester tour opener to prove they still treat high-budget touring as an arena for experimentation rather than simple routine.
