Like their previous live outing HAARP, the release is spread over two discs: a DVD featuring almost
the entire 6th July concert and a severely edited audio CD. The
focus is clearly placed heavily on the DVD, which showcases the band completely
on top of their game in front of a sold-out crowd of over 60,000 people. A wide
and creative range of cameras are employed here to great effect; the film is
visually stunning and noticeably better looking than HAARP. This is only improved by the stage production, with
pyrotechnic explosions, enormous floating lightbulbs and intense use of strobes
made all the more dramatic by the film’s visual strength. It’s bursting with
great cinematic moments too, the colour scheme shifting from monochrome to glorious
Technicolor as the band launch into Knights of Cydonia being particularly
hair-raising. Where the film fails however is that it becomes more of a
polished concert film of limited intimacy than a more simple representation of
the show; camera angles change a little too frequently and cringeworthy shots
of couples kissing are unfortunately present. This is coupled by a small number
of mysterious omissions, The 2nd Law: Unsustainable, with its colossal
tin robot dancing across the stage is strangely missing, and the film also
lacks debut album tear-jerker Unintended, an unhappy sign of Muse edging away
from their fantastic early work. The inclusion of weaker material, such as Guiding
Light, and the dominance of tracks from latest album The 2nd Law makes the missing songs all the more
obvious.
While the omitted tracks made only a small dent in the
integrity of the DVD, they completely prevent the CD from being an authentic
representation of the original concert. At just 13 songs long, the record
should have focused on delivering the hits, but instead features a strange
collection of new songs, weaker tracks and the occasional fan favourite. Almost
half of the album comes from The 2nd
Law, and omissions including Plug In Baby, Time Is Running Out and Feeling
Good are near unforgivable. The album misses so much of the concert that it
becomes a group of songs rather than a real live album, and seems to be more of
an advert for new material than a record for the fans. Despite this, the audio
quality is superb and far better than that of HAARP, but you get the feeling that the CD could have been much,
much more.
Packaged as extras are three songs recorded on the band’s
North American arena tour, including the brilliant Stockholm Syndrome. However,
the visual quality is worse than that of the Rome concert and the stage show
itself is not as spectacular, making you wonder if it would have been better to
release them as part of the Rome show (all three were performed). A documentary entitled The Road is a five
minute afterthought, a disappointment considering the excellent behind-the-scenes
films featured on other modern live albums, such as Green Day’s Bullet in a Bible. While Live at Rome Olympic Stadium is a great live document if you’re a Muse aficionado, for anyone else HAARP, with its hit-coated CD and more momentous concert (the band being the first to sell out the new Wembley stadium) is a better live starting point. The film has a sublime quality and is full of spine tingling moments, but missing tracks on the movie and CD as well as poor extras prevent Live at Rome Olympic Stadium from being the classic it deserved to be.
7/10
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