Muse took the Reliant stage around 7:30 p.m., when concertgoers were still slowly trickling in to Reliant Stadium. The place was most likely less than half full (or half empty, depending on your outlook) yet Muse's thick, epic sound filled in the gaps nicely.

After making their entrance to Sergei Prokofiev's "Dance of the Knights" from Romeo and Juliet, Muse swung smoothly into foot-tapping new single "Uprising," handling themselves with confidence. After closing "Map of the Problematique" with the riff from Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker," they launched into a decidedly muscled-up version of 2006 smash "Supermassive Black Hole," enhanced for live performance with beefier guitar solos and a bitchin' FX pedal.

With time for only nine songs, Muse tried to include tracks from each of their albums, melding the various sounds with relative success (even if Aftermath did decide to head to the bathroom for lite-rock snoozer "Starlight").

Both songs from Absolution, "Hysteria" and "Time Is Running Out," were noticeably heavier than the rest of the set list, yet provided necessary peaks of intensity during a set otherwise focused on space-rock grooves. Indeed, once frontman Matt Bellamy took out his keytar (unironically, even), Aftermath half-expected some Yes covers to follow. We're still deciding on whether or not we're disappointed that they didn't.

Closing out their final set of the 360 tour with early track "Plug In Baby," Muse left us wanting to hear more. What about "Knights of Cydonia"? "Stockholm Syndrome"? No? Better not to wear out your welcome, we suppose, but judging from the crowd's eager response, Muse had a while yet before that happened.

Some Irish band came out next. They were pretty good, too.

Set List

Intro: Sergei Prokofiev, "Dance of the Knights," from Romeo and Juliet

Uprising

Map of the Problematique

Supermassive Black Hole

Interlude

Hysteria

Undisclosed Desires

Starlight

Time Is Running Out

Plug In Baby