(MUSE) NOS Alive

NME
25th July 2015

Reviews Live
Passeio Mantimo de Alges, Lisbon, Portugal
Thursday, July 9th - Saturday, July 11th

The Prodigy and Muse battle to be the festival’s loudest band but Azealia and Sam Smith falter

There are drones swarming above the NOS Alive site, but not - oddly - during the opening day’s headline set from rock titans Muse, whose 2015 album explores the moral issues behind unmanned warcraft via the medium of bum-kicking rock. The quadcopters here are shooting aerial footage rather than soldiers, but they do bring a feel of Saigon ’69 to the event. The festival sees 50,000 party people descend on a strip of land with the Tagus river on one side and the world’s most tolerant neighbours on the other. They have to be: NOS is as loud as all hell and goes on all night, like Ozzy Osbourne in his prime. 
  If NOS is a battleground, then the big fight is for who can make the most of the devil’s own soundsystem. Muse, of course, are well prepped for that, and their super-polished show betrays the fact they’re headlining more than 30 festivals this summer. Mixing harder cuts from ‘Drones’ (single ‘Psycho’ kicks it off) with fan favourites including ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ and ‘Plug In Baby’, the show ends with Matt Bellamy wearing a Portugal flag like a cape as an explosion of streamers and ticker tape showers the crowd.

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