Next came "Resistance," a haunting love song based on George Orwell's 1984
("you'll wake the thought police") that set the teasing piano melody
and Bellamy's yearning vocals - sorry, but he really does sound a lot
like Thom Yorke, even if his band sounds nothing at all like Radiohead
- against a display of DNA double helixes and a Matrix-like
data feed that posed the question "How much is music hard-wired into
people's genetic makeup?" And, maybe more importantly, "How many bands
can even make people ask that?" Muse didn't really need those visuals
to do that... but they helped.
"New Born," from 2001's Origin of Symmetry, emerged in lively, Bach-like keyboards, the cages lowering
almost to the level of the fans. (Symbolic?) A barrage of green lasers
was expertly timed to the band's furious, metallic onslaught - which
completely drowned out the lyrics, but it's another one about the
soul's struggle for survival in an inhospitable world - while the
robotic sound effects that reminded Aftermath of all the time we've
spent playing Mass Effect lately.
Alas, since Muse's show relies so heavily on visual effects, and
photographers were only allowed to shoot the first three songs,
Aftermath thought it only fair that we cut off our review at the same
interval. To be continued tonight at SXSW...