Muse - The Resistance (2009)

[soundscapemn]

Just saw this over on mikeportnoy.com and now looking

www.muse.mu/
twitter.com/musewire

Drum roll please... The new Muse album title is... The Resistance.

a bunch of photos there.

Supposed to be released in September. One of the new songs is to be called "The United States of Eurasia" i guess.

[Lawrie]

Nice one! Really excited by this, and I'm hoping it will be the balls-out classical album that Matt Bellamy's been harping [haha, pardon the pun!] on about for a while now!

[pagad]

Slightly dodgy song title there, but I'm still really excited about this.

[Lawrie]

Got a mailing list email from the band about their upcoming tour of The Resistance later this year, and I've finally reached breaking point with Muse as a live prospect. Tickets for all UK venues were £41.25 (+ a presumed bazillion quid for booking fees and postage), and the venues are all massive arenas like the London O2 and the Birmingham NIA.

Well, as much as I love the band and their music, that's it for me with their live shows. I'd still really like to see Muse play live, and I would actually very likely pay those kind of prices to watch them in an intimate little venue, or even something mid-sized like the Brixton Academy or summat. But the idea of handing over a veritable hoard of cash for the privilege of being quarter of a mile away from the band, vicariously getting my live fix via the big screens instead of being able to properly see the stage etc - well, I can't be doing with that.

Something's the wrong way round with ticket pricing: if I have to put up with watching a gig in a less personal, bigger venue where I [and I'm speaking for myself, but I always find this to be true] am going to have a less fun night than I would at a dirty little muck-and-bullets-circuit venue, then I expect to pay LESS. Price that O2 Arena gig at £20, and I'm there. Likewise, play the Oxford Zodiac (sorry, I'll always call it that out of habit) and similar size venues, and I'll happily pay you £40 for a ticket, because I'm going to have that much of a better night.

I was going to type out a big long rant about the economics of ticket pricing at bigger and smaller venues, and go into the underlying arguments of fixed and variable costs etc (might come back to that at some point if I can be arsed), but all I'll say for the time being is I have a feeling that there's no reason why it should cost more to see a band at the O2 Arena than it costs to see the same band at the Camden Electric Ballroom. Hmmph.

[nimos]

The tickets are capped at £41.25 including booking fees (but not delivery), but this is too much for me unless I get guaranteed front row seats (a la Porcupine Tree). Looking to see if there's a pre-sale; if not, I'll be refreshing the page at 9am Friday just like everyone else.

[blondeambassador]

While I absolutely agree with the pricing beind absurd, I have to admit I'll be going for tickets come Friday as Muse are one of the VERY few bands that can carry across an arena and the atmosphere will be electric. There are literally less than half a dozen bands I'd be willing to take that risk with, and Muse are one of them...just shame about the extortionate price really. But it's nothing I didn't expect, I knew it'd be o2 for them this time round and I knew it'd be the best part of £50, as always.

[Lawrie]

I do agree that if you HAVE to see a band at a gargantuan venue like the O2 Arena, then Muse are indeed one of the handful of bands that you'd chose to play on such a massive stage. For me though, the price is still too much for what I know would be a gig that's less enjoyable than it should be for me. Every time I've been to see Muse (4 times now), it has been in a progressively bigger venue (culminating at the Wembley Stadium gigs in summer 2007), and each time has been a little less enjoyable than the last. I don't think it's because I'm falling out of love with the band any - if anything their live shows get better with every album - but it just feels less and less personal each time for me as the venues get bigger, and I start to feel kinda 'outside' of the gig experience, like I'm watching it on TV or something. Had the same feeling when I went to see Radiohead at Victoria Park last year, and it's part of the reason that I'm not keen on festivals etc.

Hope you all have a fantastic time if you get tickets when they go on sale, mind - I'm just rapidly turning into a fussy, grumpy old man when it comes to live music these days: wish I could shake the feelings, but I can't!

[blondeambassador]

Yeah, see bear in mind I absolutely love festivals...so really, I endeavour that Muse at the O2 will have a fairly similar atmosphere to if they were headlining one of the big guns of the festival world. Perhaps, it also helps that as long as I've liked Muse, they've played arenas so I've never seen them any other way, I just picture them as an arena band really.

[nimos]

So who actually got tickets? The presale was rubbish! I refreshed the page at 8:58am and seetickets was down (or just restricting connections); gave up after half an hour and went back to sleep. The actual sale only had upper tier seats available so I passed on those.

[soundscapemn]

unfortunately Muse is going to beat PT to the punch by a week. But they may leak the same day?

September 14th

www.muselive.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=38495

[Max]

I managed to get tickets for Birmingham, and got 8 tickets for me and some mates to make the trip to see them in Berlin Really looking forwards to it.

Muse, Porcupine Tree and Oceansize all releasing new music in the same month? Hell yeah!

[AlExMachina]

And Frank Turner! Not that that will get much of a reaction on here I suspect. It should though, Frank Turner is the bestest thing ever.

[ryan]

not quite. he is very good though.

[AlExMachina]

I am prone to exaggerate when talking about Frank! He just did 24 house parties in 24 hours for a music video. Trooper.

[ryan]

He did. I should have offered my place, it's right near a few
of the others.