MUSE!!!

Clearly Muse, a personal favorite of both Kris and I’s, was going to be the highlight of the day. We had been waiting for this concert going on nearly 9 months now and had talked about our desire to see them play in their own backyard for years. Today we got to see the dream come true. Jiminy Cricket would be so proud. But before I give you the highlights, I’ll recap the rest of our day.

We allowed ourselves the chance to sleep in a little today. Sleep, on a trip like this, has definitely come in spurts. We take it where we can get it. After reading our confirmation email for the concert more closely (thank God we did!) we saw we needed to have the email printed out, so our first order of business was finding a place to print the email. 10 minutes walking we found our place. A pound and 20 pence later we were on the move again. We walked down to Covent Gardens and took in the shopping masses and street performers. We figured now would be as good a time as any, maybe our only time, to get our magnet and our “remember London” souvenir. We found both within an hour or so, as well as a new hat and scarf, for me and Kris respectively. We also made quick stops at Trafalgar’s and Piccadilly Circus. QUICK stops. It was getting later in the day and we had a decent train ride ahead of us to get to Wembley.

The train ride to Wembley was long and hot and rather amusing. You had lots of junior high/high school age kids getting on, clearly in their best “rock concert” outfits, intentionally trying to look unintentional in their dress. You also have the folks who wear the Muse t-shirts to the show, which in most concert circles, is a big no-no. I was not judging, but couldn’t help wondering if these people knew that or not. Really by the time you get to the stadium, they have t-shirt vendors everywhere and a lot of people throwing on their shirts. We both got one and Kris did put on hers, probably to keep warm as much as anything. We also noticed a significant increase in food sale prices getting closer to the arena, so after getting our tickets we headed back in to town to get much cheaper food, eating at a silly little place that I’m sure enjoyed concert nights for the quadruple amount of business they must get.

By the time we found our seats in the upper areas of the stadium, we got a chance to enjoy the band before the band before Muse. That being The Big Pink. They played a decent gig and gave way to Lily Allen, who was a lot of fun. A spunky British solo artist, she’s something of a Liz Phair/Pink type but with better music sensibilities and more enjoyable lyrics, in my mind. She finished by 8:15 and we were left with a half hour to wait for our band. You could feel the energy growing in the stadium, a gathering storm that would erupt as soon any indication of the start of Muse showed. And erupt it did! With the help of about 150 extras marching out with flags and the use of maybe 300 lights, sounds effects and props, Muse blasted right into the set with Uprising off their new album and did not stop until two and a half hours later with a glorious rendition of Knights of Cydonia. In between we enjoyed song after thrilling song, including Starlight (our recessional song at our wedding), Plug In Baby, Stockholm Syndrome, Super Massive Blackhole and even their latest, Neutron Star Collision. I think Tina and I spent the first half an hour or so with a permanent giddy smile on our face, like a kid at Disneyland for the first time. They really threw out a show for the ages, sparing no expense in the name of the performance, even including a Cirque de Sole-type dancer balancing from an enormous spaceship-esque blimp hovering above the crowd.

We spent the next 45 minutes after the show running and weaving like mad towards the train to try and get back to our stop by midnight, thinking we only had until then to exit the train on our day passes. As the minutes passed and our tension grew, we were given a permanent reprieve 10 minutes to midnight when a guy riding with us overheard our concerns and assured us we had until 4 in the morning to exit the underground. So the huffing and puffing was for not, but the relief of being able to get off the train without extra pay was more important. We made it back to the hotel, our voices shot, our bodies weary and our minds still racing from possibly the best live show we have ever seen.