Gig Review: Muse at the Etihad Stadium Manchester, 1.6.13, Plus Dizzee Rascal and Bastille

As Muse ride the colossal tsunami of last year's number one album The 2nd Law, a single question has found itself on the lips of fans and critics alike: is there anywhere left to go? Over the course of nineteen years together, the Devonshire trio have recorded platinum albums, headlined festivals and sold out stadiums, but can this group of survivors continue to morph and change to create music that consistently pushes the bar of what can and can't be done? On this most massive of massive tours, perhaps we could find an answer.

Before anything is discovered however, Bastille take to the stage. As new kids on the alternative scene, it's obvious that the quartet intend to display their potential to fill venues of this size with this opening support slot. With just a single studio album, they lack the wealth of material Dizzee or Muse have to choose from or the fans to sing it back at them, which amounts to a muted response from the enormous crowd. Despite their musical excellence, songs such as Bad Blood and Flaws seem more suited to an intimate surrounding than the Etihad Stadium, and the band themselves appear understandably uncomfortable playing in such a titanic location. Each member, including lead singer Dan Smith, seem rooted to their chosen spots on stage, and tonight only mega-single Pompeii truly gets the 60,000 strong crowd jumping and singing.

By contrast, Dizzee Rascal is explosive. From the word go he and his two supporting singers are bouncing across the stage to the sound of Rascal's trademark expletive-filled grime-rap. While they lack Bastille's carefully crafted songs, Dizziee and his boys more than make up for it in pure energy, with each song powered along by the seamless beats and grooves of  the onstage DJ. Opening with Here 2 China, The London-born rapper is immediately urging the crowd to jump, mosh and sing along to a set heavily relying on unreleased material from his upcoming album, The Fifth. The fact that no-one has heard many of the songs aired tonight fails to stop the crowd from going absolutely mad, although particular enthusiasm is reserved for classic Rascal tracks including Bass Line Junkie, Holiday and, inevitably, the number-one single Bonkers. He may have originally been seen as a poor fit for as sophisticated a band as Muse, but over his forty-five minute set Dizzee proves that his is the perfect act to get a crowd of any size in the mood for any band.

Muse, however, are a class apart. Out of all three bands here, they are the ones who have proved beyond any doubt that they are ideally suited to playing the world's largest venues, and on this enormous stage they are in their element. Clearly aiming to excite their audience to breaking point, the intro to The 2nd Law: Unsustainable fizzles into life ten minutes late, before a powerful fireball signals the cue for the band to launch into Supremacy. Much has been said of the musical virtuoso that is singer, guitarist and pianist Matt Bellamy, and tonight he is utterly on top of his game; every screaming guitar solo note perfect, every riff charged full of power and every vocal line beautifully sung. Drummer Dom Howard and Bassist Chris Wolstenholme also appear eager to play to such a huge crowd as the band launch immediately into fan-favourite Supermassive Black Hole. Over the seventeen song main body of the gig, the bands' onstage energy and presence never relents, with Bellamy in particular charging around the stage like a man on fire. Over six albums Muse have built such a wealth of material that they can pull out tracks from both their most recent albums and their nineties roots without their performance ever feeling disjointed, which makes for an impressively varied and developed setlist. Giving rare showings to lesser-known songs such as Dead Star and Guiding Light while ignoring barnstorming hits like Hysteria might be seen as a tad self-indulgent, the this unpredictability is part of what Muse is about, and hearing these regularly forgotten tracks gives Muse's performance a personal touch. Moreover, Bellamy barely speaks the crowd which makes it all the more impressive that the show feels so personal. Of course, today's Muse shows aren't just about the music, and tonight's performance is fuelled by a huge LED screen behind the band and hundreds of strobe lights, along with chimneys belching flames into the night sky. Naturally, it's the most powerful and popular tracks such as Knights of Cydonia, Bliss and Stockholm Syndrome that really strike a chord with this crowd, so it's fortunate that Muse have dozens of such tracks to choose from.

After a stunning rendition of Stockholm Syndrome closes the main body of the performance, the band retire to a small second stage at the end of a catwalk that extends deep into the amassed fans. Here the band take a moment to shed light on the rarest of their songs, playing a beautiful acoustic version of Unintended; a long-forgotten song from first album Showbiz, giving the most hard-core of Muse fans a chance to raise their voices above the rest. Blackout sees a ballerina suspended from an enormous plastic light bulb floating across the crowd, while Undisclosed Desires gives Matt the opportunity to shake hands with screaming fans (including myself) at the barrier between stage and crowd.

Of course, the band return for two extended encores, the first seeing a thirty-foot tin robot dancing to the dubstep beats of The 2nd Law: Unsustainable, before the classic Muse anthem Plug in Baby, which seems even more colossal than the robot itself! The band's Olympic theme song Survival follows, before an extended version of The 2nd Law: Unsustainable introduces the second encore, which features the powerful revolutionary track Uprising before Starlight delivers Manchester a towering, pyro-fuelled finale.

With this phenomenal concert Muse have once again proved that they are better than ever before, and continue to strive to become the greatest band on the planet. Perhaps they have gone everywhere they can go, but they are still showing us that nothing can stop creativity, and nothing can stop their ideas.

10/10