Muse on Tour
All words & pictures by Ruth

Muse, Tyler - Exeter, Lemon Grove
4/04/2001



Essentially the warm-up for the start of Muse's European tour, and on the eve of their second album, this 300 capacity crowd is probably the last chance the three piece will have to be this close to their audience. The Lemon Grove, a place which last played host to the band in their pre-Showbiz days, is packed with nu-metal and indie kids (as well as, rumours have it, the entire Howard clan and several members of Matt and Chris' immediate families) as well as several visitors form as far afield as Japan for the biggest gig the venue has probably ever seen.

As a precursor to the tour proper, tonight's warm-up entertainment comes not courtesy of recently signed hopefuls Cooper Temple Clause (main support for subsequent dates on this leg), but of local band Tyler. Boasting the most cross-genre line-up we've encountered for a while, Tyler seem to compliment Muse in that they're also classically influenced, yet in a different way to the Teignmouth trio. So at points they echo the intelligent emo-core of Hundred Reasons, The Cranberries, Idlewild et al., but coming closest to Biffy Clyro, mixing heart-wrenching cello melodies with stark guitar noise. Through associations with the Cavern and Solo Records in Exeter, they'll have a new single out soon, which is probably worth checking out if you're down that way any time soon.

Muse take to the stage nervous amid the cheers of the crowd (some of whom, bizarrely, have taken to chanting Radiohead tunes between songs). Choosing to start with new song 'MicroCuts', it's clear that Muse are using the dubiously-regarded decision to tour before the album release to road test the new material. Being that a lot of the new material is available on Napster (apparently) already, the cheers for such Showbiz album classics as 'Sunburn' and 'Cave' are as raucous as those for less rehearsed numbers as 'Hyper Music' and 'Screenager' (formerly known as 'Razorblades and Glossy Magazines'). However, it's recent top twenty single 'Plug In Baby' that gets the biggest response, the crowd surfers making their big appearance and the band rightly obliging; Matthew Bellamy's face contorts and the guitar swings high and low across his frame in a rawk pastiche of eighties tight jeans tomfoolery, while Chris Wolstenholme's Jesus-hair flies and Dominic Howard's drums grunt under the strain. Yet for all the excitement, there's no stage trashing, no collapsing Marshall stacks.

Usual Roadies' nightmare 'Showbiz' is relegated to the middle of the set where it can do little harm to the equipment, or indeed the band's bank balance, after whispers that half the budget for the second album was blown on replacement equipment. Instead for the encore, they opt for three-times single favourite 'Muscle Museum', with it's teen angst friendly chorus ("I don't want you to adore me/don't want you to ignore me..."), appropriately-titled live classic 'Bliss', and old B-side Agitated, a blueprint for the two-minute riff frenzy of moshing and broken bones. Those who came tonight for wanton destruction had to make do with Chris smashing his bass over one of one of the cymbals before exiting. Tonight was all about good music and intimacy. "Where's the rest of my band?" moans Bellamy as he takes the stage for the encore. "Excuse us for a minute Chris has to take a piss," replies Howard. A band who can lift a crowd to ecstasy while still remaining down to earth and unjaded? That'll be the Muse.