Let’s get the obvious thing out of the way; Muse are beyond my favourite band. Everytime they come on TV, or I hear their music, they get my undivided attention. The band have been in my mind with their incredible musical ability and what they do for years and years, and I have only seen them live once, as well as missing out on the biggest gig of their career with Wembley Stadium in 2007. No matter what mistakes they make, I continue to support them and listen to every individual piece of musical brilliance I feel they make. This year, we are getting their fifth studio album in “The Resistance”, what is expected to be a symphonic, completely bat-shit insane rock opera type of over the top thing that Matthew Bellamy seems to fascinated over creating, with the main attraction of the album expected to be a 3-track long “Symphonic Monster”, as the band call it, to close the album starting from a quiet build-up and ending in a clash or orchestral bliss. Just describing it now gets me so excited to hear this – the last album was out in 2006, and finally, we’re here with a new album! Fantastic! So… why am I so fed up of hearing about the band I love so?
The World Tour was announced yesterday. “The Resistance” tour, as the band put it, sees the threesome making their way around Europe (European Tour, surely?) from the snowy horizons of of Scandinavia, the peaks of Switzerland, and the sweltering luxury of Spain. Of course, the band will be coming home to their native United Kingdom to address their adoring fans with their new material, their classic hits, and maybe a surprise thrown in with a grand stage show. So for me, I sit there yesterday evening reading the dates in November… London, of course… Birmingham, for sure… Sheffield, ok… Liverpool?… Glasgow…and… that’s it for the UK? No Cardiff? No Manchester? Nothing? Just these measly few gigs in a 30 gig calendar? No Cardiff. And at £42 a ticket… what a disappointment. A horrible sense of anger and frustration ran through my body when I saw this, and whilst it seems a pathetic issue to get angry over, let me try and express myself to give you a greater understanding.
Why is it that Muse feel necessary to ignore the entire west-country as well as Wales? It makes no sense to me! There will be people who will travel to the Birmingham gig of course, it’s the nearest to any of Muse’s Welsh and West Country fans, but not everyone has that luxury of splashing out £45 + travel + accommodation every so often in life. This includes myself. As I say, I love the band but there’s no chance I can even begin to justify spending that much for 2 hours of something I still have no guarantee of making, and getting home from without any issues as well as the fact that it’ll be during a year of University where my future just may be depended on. We’re also stuck in an economic climate where money is a necessity; there are something I’m willing to travel for and I have my undoubted priorities in live that means the world to me no matter how far, but I’m sorry Muse, this is one area that you don’t come into. Cardiff would have been perfect, but alas, Cardiff is obviously not perfect for them.
Furthermore, 2009 is the year they’ve been touting for months and months about the new album, and finally coming back to the UK for a tour to us fans, something that has stayed on my mind for such a long time and I’ve been so mega excited for. The feeling of being at a Muse gig and seeing them perform to me is indescribable; a flurry of emotions, the incredible sensation of power, excitement, everything that the body can emotionally conjure up comes out in their live performances. There’s a reason why they’re widely considered arguably the best live act in the United Kingdom at the moment, and now I’m stuck with the feeling that I know I won’t see this after years of waiting for it so much. But…. that’s life. Life would be boring if it were too perfect, as they say.
The point of this entry is to not act like a selfish, self-centred spoilt brat who throws his toys out the tantrum – I apologise if it does seem that way but I am simply trying to convey just how much of a disappointment this is not only for me but thousands upon thousands of Muse fans nearby for sure. My sister, for example, got off the phone with me earlier today and her disappointment as I told her the new was unparalleled; she was mega excited such as myself to finally get the opportunity, after 3 years or so, to see this incredible band once again. She had constantly told me to remind her when the tour was announced, when we could see them, when they were coming. To phone up and tell her we weren’t going because they simply aren’t close enough absolutely crushes me and her reaction comes as no surprise. Hopefully 2010 will bring a proper tour of the UK and proper dates for us to enjoy. I can only hope for now.
The new album is still on the horizon and I’m still so very excited for it. The band are still an amazing collaboration of 3 guys who create sheer excellence in their talents and like I say, I’ve missed out on Wembley Stadium, so I’ve already had stuff like this before. It still hurts knowing what could have been. It really annoys me deep inside that they simply just haven’t accommodated for all areas around the UK. For 18 months after Black Holes and Revelations, the band toured around the world with gigs never tiring and losing faith in what they were doing so there’s still hope for next year. Onwards and upwards, I myself have a fantastic summer to look forward to in my personal life and events like Goodwood and other things occurring. Luckily for me, this hasn’t ruined anything at all. I’ve probably annoyed far too many people about this, and this is absolutely the last time I shall talk about how I feel about it all. However, I still love the band, I still love their music and I’ll continue to support them. This world tour will still make me ask myself though…
…why?
A question I suppose I’ll never know the answer to.
1 comments:
I understand the complaints. Nothing in the South West at all. Nothing in the North East at all. And maybe I'd understand it if it were more of a World Tour.
There might still be time though, plenty of time for Muse to announce another UK tour for sure.
I'm amazed they didn't go North East though, I mean, Newcastle Arena is a perfect place for it, been to a gig there and its a great atmosphere. Sheffield is about the same size yet gets the gig, which I can understand as we don't want the Yorkshire folk complaining, but I would think they could fit a few more UK slots on, it is after all, where they were born after all.
Apparantly in Devon according to wikipedia, so woulda thought at least something down there as well.
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