Muse play final confirmed festival show of 2017 as they headline Life Is Beautiful

Sigrid, Cage The Elephant and Broods also performed on the second day of the Las Vegas festival

Muse rounded off their festival commitments for 2017 with a headline performance at Las Vegas’ Life Is Beautiful tonight (September 23). 

The band currently only have four more live dates confirmed for the rest of the year, all of which are their own headline shows.

Taking to the Downtown Stage at 10:50pm, the trio ran through a career-spanning set similar to that which they aired during their Reading & Leeds headline performances last month. They began with ‘Dig Down’ and ‘Psycho’, after which frontman Matt Bellamy greeted the sizeable crowd: “Good evening Las Vegas!”

Advertisement

After ‘Butterflies & Hurricanes’, he shouted “Las Vegas, let me hear you!” before teasing the crowd with bursts of buzzing guitar noise. The band then launched into ‘Plug In Baby’. Later, after Stockholm Syndrome’, Bellamy threw his guitar on the floor before being handed a fresh instrument and immediately segueing into ‘Supermassive Black Hole’.

The frontman briefly left the stage afterwards as Howard and bassist Chris Wolstenholme played the group’s cover of The Cramps’ ‘New Kind Of Kick’. Bellamy soon rejoined them for ‘Madness’, taken from their 2012 album, ‘The 2nd Law’.

“This next song is for our best friend – happy birthday,” he said ahead of ‘Starlight’, instructing the audience to “put your hands in the air” along the way. Two more songs (‘Time Is Running Out’ and ‘Mercy’) brought the main portion of the set to a close, before the band brought the whole night to an end with an extended version of ‘Uprising’, and ‘Knights Of Cydonia’. “Vegas, thank you!” Bellamy said afterwards, adding a short chant of “USA!” Howard also took the opportunity to thank their fans, saying: “We love you, Vegas. We love you guys. Cheers.”

View this post on Instagram

#madness #muse #lifeisbeautiful

A post shared by DX (@vid_daxu) on

Muse played:

Advertisement

‘Dig Down’
‘Psycho’

‘Interlude’
‘Hysteria’
‘Butterflies & Hurricanes’
‘Plug In Baby’
‘The 2nd Law: Isolated System’
‘Stockholm Syndrome’

‘Supermassive Black Hole’
‘New Kind Of Kick’
‘Madness’
‘Dead Inside’
‘Take A Bow’

‘Munich Jam’
‘Starlight’
‘Time Is Running Out’
‘Mercy’
‘Uprising’
‘Knights Of Cydonia’

Earlier in the day, Norwegian rising star Sigrid helped get the second day of the festival under way.

The singer was joined by an unusual surprise guest during her performance. While thanking the crowd following ‘Plot Twist’, Sigrid noticed a dog sat side of stage. “Thank you so much, it’s an honour to play here. It’s our first US festival,” she said, before clocking the animal and running towards it. Back at her microphone, she said: “This is the best fucking festival we’ve ever played at – there’s a dog here!”

The dog later wandered onto the stage during ‘Fake Friends’, with Sigrid holding the microphone out towards it to join in. “Do you like the songs we’re singing, dog?” she asked it at one point. “Thank you and thank you for the guest appearance from the dog,” she joked after the song was done.

She closed out her performance with her breakthrough track ‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’, telling the enthusiastic audience after: “Thank you so much for coming, it’s been fun.”

New Zealand duo Broods played two sets during the afternoon, with their second taking the form of a stripped back set at the Toyota Music Den. Technical difficulties meant singer Georgia Nott was unable to play her piano during the set.

Instead, she and brother Caleb treated the packed tent to a short set of acoustic songs, including ‘Taking You There’ and their Lorde collaboration, ‘Heartlines’. During the latter, which closed the set, Georgia thanked the patient audience, saying: “You guys are amazing.”

Over on the Ambassador Stage, Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness brought air dancers, beach balls, a parachute and a giant inflatable duck to keep the spirit of summer going strong throughout their set. “Tonight, you are the centre of the universe – the centre of the world – and we’re honoured and privileged to be playing for you,” McMahon said after ‘High Dive’. “All we ask is, any troubles you came here with, you leave them on the other side of that gate.”

The band’s set comprised of songs from their two studio albums and McMahon’s output with previous outfits Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate. They closed their 50-minute set with ‘Cecilia And The Satellite’, before which the frontman recalled playing the first edition of Life Is Beautiful. “My wife sat side stage pregnant with my baby girl,” he told the audience, adding that he wrote the final song for his daughter and that it “changed my life”.

Meanwhile, Kentucky’s Cage The Elephant brought their unpredictable rock’n’roll to the Downtown Stage. After ‘Cold Cold Cold’, a full-length mirror was brought on stage and placed in front of singer Matt Shultz, who then proceeded to strip down to just a pair of cut off nude tights and his underwear, and put a nude skullcap over his hair. During following track ‘Too Late To Say Goodbye’, he forcefully kicked the mirror over, leaving it to be cleaned up by one of the crew.

Afterwards, he commented: “I feel like a new born baby.” He removed the skullcap, but kept the rest of his outfit the same until the set’s final throes, when he redressed into black trousers and a white t-shirt.

During ‘Come A Little Closer’, he ran down the aisle separating general admission ticket-holders from the VIP area, clutching at fans’ hands and even serenading one of the security staff along the way. Towards the end of the track, Shultz grabbed the headset off of a production worker and sang into the attached microphone, before handing it back to the man.

Back on stage, he explained two members of the band were out sick and introduced the bassist and drummer filling in for them. The band then closed with ‘Teeth’, after which the frontman instructed the crowd: “Don’t give into the hype of hate. Love each other.”

Life Is Beautiful 2017 concludes tomorrow (September 24) with sets from The xx, Haim, Vince Staples, Gorillaz and more.

You May Also Like

Advertisement

TRENDING

Advertisement

More Stories