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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, my favorite song off the newest Muse album is “Reapers,” and I believe if you are learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about lessons I learned from attending two Muse concerts in a five week span.
Today’s Fun Fact: Since today’s episode will focus on the British rock band Muse, here are some supermassive facts about the band.
- Muse is made up of lead singer and guitarist Matt Bellamy, bassist and backing vocalist Chris Wolstenholme, and drummer Dominic Howard.
- The band tried out a series of names before finally settling on Muse. Previous names of the band include Gothic Plague, Fixed Penalty and Rocket Baby Dolls.
- Muse’s HAARP tour in the Wembley stadium was voted to be the greatest event held in the stadium. They beat Queen, Michael Jackson and even the World Cup to stand out on the top.
- Lead singer Matt Belamy did not grow up wanting to be a rock star. Bellamy has said that he wanted to be in a classical band or a jazz band and when he started, he wanted to learn the jazz piano, or maybe the clarinet.
- Muse appeared on the Twilight Soundtrack due to a previous promise Matt made to Stephanie Mayer. She asked if she could use their music if her books ever got made into movies because she is a fan.
What I Learned Yesterday:
I first discovered Muse in November of 2009. Put more accurately, Muse was first brought to my attention in November of 2009. At that time we were playing clip from different songs at the end of some of our Fringe podcasts that we felt related in some way to the theme of that episode. All of the songs were picked out by Jason, who was a co-host of the show for the first season and a half.
The seventh episode of Fringe’s second season was call “Of Human Action” and Jason felt like the Muse song “Uprising” would be a good fit. Having never before heard of Muse, I pulled up the song on Youtube and instantly loved it. That quickly led to me listening to their other songs and watching their live concerts on Youtube. I even created a Muse channel on Pandora and Spotify.
My wife didn’t discover Muse until last year. I’m not sure how she discovered them, but when she did, it was like she got sucked into a supermassive Muse black hole madness. She was like a butterfly in a hurricane and not even the Knights of Cydonia could create an uprising big enough to revolt against their isolated system. She turned into a psycho muse fan that got whipped up into a hysteria every time she thought of the band.
She joined their fan club and anxiously anticipated the announcement of their US tour dates. When they announced a stop in Dallas, she ran into my office and asked me if I’d like to go. We looked over our finances and decided that we could make the trip down to Dallas and catch the show. She was pumped! The second that tickets went on sale she snatched us up two tickets right in the middle of the area on the third row off the floor. Since Muse’s stage was a large 360º rotating stage right in the middle of the area floor, we had some of the best seats in the house.
We left for Dallas on the morning of the concert and arrived in Dallas a few hours later. We went by the area to pick up our tickets, freshened up at the hotel, got a bite to eat, and then made our way back to the arena for the concert. That’s when things took an unexpected turn.
The first official leg of the Drones World Tour kicked off in Mexico City on November 17, 18, 20, and 21. The band then had just over a week before their next concert which took place in Houston on December 1st. Our Dallas concert took place the very next night after Houston on December 2nd. When we arrived at the arena, we noticed signs on the doors that said due to technical and logistic difficulties from the previous night in Houston and during set-up in Dallas, the show would not be starting on time. Not only that, but the opening act, Phantogram, had been scrubbed from the Dallas show completely. The doors were originally scheduled to open at 6. They ended up opening the doors at 9, and Muse didn’t take the stage until 10:40pm.
I’m not sure what all the technical difficulties were. The concert featured an incredible amount of audio and visual effects that had to be taken down and packed in Houston, trucked 240 miles to Dallas, and then set up all over again. With a tour called Drones, you might expect that the show might also include some drones. Muse didn’t disappoint. They had over a dozen drones that lit up and hovered over the crowd during various parts of the show. Unfortunately, during the Houston show, one of the drones landed in the crowd. Therefore, no drones were used during the Dallas concert.
I think the bigger issue was that it was a bigger than expected task to tear down all the equipment, get it transported, get it set up, tested, and ready for show time when the band was booked for concerts on back to back nights in two different cities. Not only that, but there was more maintenance required to prepare each arena than was expected. Immediately after the Dallas show, the band rescheduled a few other dates that would have put them into a similar logistical situation as Houston/Dallas. This meant that the December 6th Las Vegas concert was moved to January 9th.
Even though the concert started 3 hours late, even though we had to spend more time out in the cold than we would have liked, even though we sat in the area for over 90 minutes while they finished setting up the stage, we had an amazing time. I’d seen quite a few Muse concerts on TV and Youtube, so I had pretty high expectations. My expectations were exceeded. The sound was fantastic, they were great with the crowd, played for about 2 hours, and played every single song that I had hoped to hear.
The penultimate song of the night was “Mercy” and it was incredible. The song was already among my favorites on the new album, but watching them do it live took my appreciation of it to a whole new level. As the song reached the crescendo, confetti cannons went off and we were covered in custom confetti men with no arms that match the artwork on the new album. Kari took one home as a souvenir.
They wrapped it up with a harmonica solo that led into Knights of Cydonia and the crowd went supernova. Everyone was jumping and singing, Matt was shredding the guitar riffs, their harmonies were perfect, and the whole area was singing. What a great way to end the night. No one cared that we’d had to wait so long. The show was worth it!
Over the next few days, Kari watched some of the other Muse shows live via Periscope. You see, while she loved the Dallas show, she did not get all that she wanted out of it. She knew that the drones and some of the lighting effects were missing, and she also didn’t get to hear her favorite song, “Hysteria.”
As she watched the other concerts night after night, she saw that the kinks had been worked out and they were putting on the full show as it was intended to be given. Not only that, but they were playing “Hysteria” nearly every night. Kari approached me and asked if I’d be up to going to see them again.
We looked at the calendar and the bank account and gave it some thought. Now, one thing you must understand is that Kari is not a high maintenance spouse. She does not require “things” in order to feel loved, she doesn’t like to shop or buy things, and she really doesn’t ask for much. I can’t even tell you how many times I have bought her something only to have her give it to someone else that she felt needed it more. So when she came and asked if we could go see Muse again, it was a big deal.
Of course, we worked it out so that we could go see the Las Vegas show on January 9th. It was quite a bit more expensive since it required airfare and multiple nights in a hotel, but it was pretty rare that we ever got away for a weekend together.
I’ll probably share more about our trip another time, but for this episode I’ll stay focused on the concert.
The Vegas concert was stunning. The addition of the drones, full light show, opening act, and overall polish were much more noticeable than I expected. It was incredible. We once again scored fantastic seats and we could not have enjoyed ourselves more. They even played “Hysteria” and Kari got as excited as I’ve ever seen her. It was one of my favorite things I’ve been able to do with my wife.
Here’s what I learned.
I wish I could have been in the meeting that undoubtedly took place when Muse realized that they’d have to delay the Dallas show. They had to make some very hard decisions. I’m sure that cutting Phantogram from the show was gut wrenching. They had to figure out which technical elements could be cut out, and which ones had to be a part of the show no matter what. I’m sure they went through the show song by song, piece by piece with their crew and discussed exactly what would be cut out, come up with a unique game plan for that night, and then determine how they would execute that plan.
The band was very gracious to the crew when they took the stage. Some members of the crew had not slept in over 24 hours and they had worked tirelessly to help put out the best show possible given the situation.
Those tough decisions and hard work paid off. We did not leave Dallas disappointed. Sure, Kari was disappointed that they didn’t play “Hysteria,” but she knew ahead of time that it was a song that was an alternate for this tour. Dallas wasn’t the only time it wasn’t included in the set list.
After the Las Vegas concert, I pondered the two shows. Both of them were incredible. Both exceeded my expectations. Both blew me away. Both but a huge smile on my face. Both made me a bigger Muse fan. Both gave me great memories to share with my wife. Both not only pleased us, but pleased everyone we observed or spoke with.
When Muse began dreaming up what the Drones World Tour would look like, Dallas was not it. When Dallas became their reality, they had to make a hard decision. They could reschedule the show or they could scale back the show and move forward with the best show possible given the current situation.
When we’re putting together a project, it’s had to make choices like they had to make. We want to wait until everything is perfect and just how we see it in our heads before we go public with it. But the truth is, if we wait until everything is perfect, we’ll never launch. I’d bet a shiny penny that if I had the chance to ask Muse about what they dreamed the Drones World Tour would be like, they’d tell me about ideas they had that didn’t make it into the final show for one reason or another. They had to make decisions and launch the tour.
If you go back and listen to those first few seasons of The Fringe Podcast, you’ll notice a stark difference in what you hear now. Our audio quality is leaps and bounds better than it used to be, and we’re much more polished than we were back then. Can you imagine if I’d waited until we sound like we do now before I launched our first podcast? Think about all the stuff I wouldn’t have learned because most of what I know I learned AFTER we launched.
So don’t be afraid to push off from the dock. Put out the best product you can given your current situation. Understand that your best today, will not be your best tomorrow. In fact, embrace that fact. Embrace the fact that putting yourself out there today, is still capable of making an impact and doing great things. And embrace the truth that putting yourself out there today, even if it’s not your ideal situation, will better prepare you for the future than where you’re at today.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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