(MUSE) AND YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO MISS - MUSE AT THE OLYMPIA
Friday 20th February 2004
Evening Herald (Dublin)
There's a lot to be said for bands forming and developing in out of way locations. For while there are undoubted disadvantages in being away from the industry's main centres of influence, not to mention the extra expense involved in travelling to gigs, the isolation can help an act to forge a singular identity.
One wonders whether the Manic Street Preachers would have raged quite so hard had they grown up in, say Bermondsey rather than building up good grudges in Blackwood, South Wales and the same individualistic streak applies to Muse.
Formed in the small Devon town of Taignton, Muse's distance from whatever trends were sweeping London during their formative years allowed them to develop an idiosyncratic musical style which was way out of step with anything being attempted by their contemporaries.
Over the the course of three albums they've gone from being compared to a more bombastic Radiohead (as if that's humanly possible) to a bonkers, neo-prog rock outfit where no quirk remains unexplored.
Singer-guitarist Matt Bellamy (whose father played bass with The Tornados, the group who were the first British band to have a US No 1 back in August 1962 with the inventive instrumental Telstar, fact fiends!), bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dom Howard employ elaborate keyboard frills, guitar-twiddling techoflash and stuttering but pounding percussion to create a bizarre musical hybrid which at times sounds like a falsetto'd Freddie Mercury fronting some unholy alliance between the Spiders From Mars and Yes.
And if that sounds like your particular cup of hemlock than it's the Olympia on Sunday for you but the unwary be warned: Muse are also as loud as hell.
Muse, Olympia Theatre, Sunday-Monday 8pm
(George Byrne)
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