Apr 15

Apr 15 Show Review, Photos: Muse Deliver Rock Spectacle with 'Will of the People' Tour in Oakland

Muse
w/ Evanescence, Highly Suspect
Oakland Arena
Oakland, CA
April 14th, 2023

Review and Photos by Jared Stossel

It is astounding how many great songs Muse has written over the course of their career. The English rock act has grown into a rock and roll behemoth, traversing the globe with their incredibly unique brand of stadium-ready rock. Their live shows have always been spectacles, but last night’s performance at Oakland Arena on the band’s Will of the People tour - named for their current album - was an over-the-top exhibition of how to put on an incredible show. Muse pulled out the stops, both song-wise and production-wise, resulting in one of the best concerts to grace the Bay Area this year.

Around 6:30 PM, the show kicked off with a set from rock act Highly Suspect. Using the term “up-and-coming” to describe them doesn’t necessarily do them justice; the band has been making records and touring extensively since 2009, but they’ve only recently begun to break into the mainstream. The hybrid rock act unleashed a wide variety of songs upon the crowd from their most recent efforts, namely 2019’s electro-pop/rock blending MCID and last year’s The Midnight Demon Club. The band’s music is arena-ready, and they did an outstanding job getting the evening off on the right foot.

Perhaps as highly anticipated as Muse was a set from Evanescence, the Arkansas-based rock act and main support for this tour. For decades, the band – fronted by the magnificent Amy Lee – has tread the line between hard rock and gothic metal. The five-piece act sounded exceptionally great live, whether they were performing newer or older material. I’ll admit that I was a bit lukewarm in my reception to their most recent effort, 2021’s The Bitter Truth, but I must confess that the songs performed from this record (“Better Without You”, “Wasted On You”, “Use My Voice”, among others) sound fantastic. The band’s live performances bring them to life in an entirely new way, and it works incredibly well.

When you’re a band that’s been around as long as Evanescence, it’s for good reason. Even with great reception to the newer material, the biggest crowd pops of the night came during The Open Door’s “Call Me When You’re Sober” and their finale which included career-defining tracks from 2003’s Fallen: “My Immortal” and “Bring Me To Life”. In the latter track, Highly Suspect’s Johnny Stevens returned to the stage to duet with Lee, trading off the rap verse of the song’s bridge with Lee’s near-operatic vocal stylings. By this point, you could feel the energy in the room.

A little after 9:00 PM, the video screens adorning the side of the stage lit up, revealing a CGI rendering of the Will of the People artwork. A crowd of rebels uses ropes to pull down the three gigantic statues that adorn the album cover, and the screen cuts to black as the chant that signals the beginning of the album’s eponymous single blares throughout the arena. Muse are revealed – wearing mirror-like post-apocalyptic masks – as a brilliant display of pyrotechnics fires off around them, the album’s logo set ablaze in one of the most incredible displays of theatricality I’ve ever seen in a rock show. For only three people, Muse is loud, they are in-your-face, and they have no problem letting you know they’ve arrived in the building, whether you’re front and center or all the way in the farthest corners of the nosebleed section. The band – lead vocalist/guitarist Matt Bellamy, drummer Dominic Howard, and bassist Chris Wolstenholme – play off each other immaculately; they’re some of the best musicians in the genre today.

Every single song that followed proved to be a hit from throughout their impressive catalog of songs, whether it came from Absolution (“Hysteria), The Resistance (“Uprising), The 2nd Law (“Madness”. “The 2nd Law: Isolated System”), Origin of Symmetry (“Plug In Baby”), or Black Holes and Revelations. Every track brought forth a spectacle of its own, whether they were utilizing a massive array of streamers, a flurry of fake snow, bucket loads of confetti, or a display of pyrotechnics that could put any 80s metal band to shame. There was never a dull moment.

Some of the best entries of the night came during performances of the Will of the People tracks; seven of the ten tracks on the album were performed, and the crowd reactions during them were always great. The opening notes of “Compliance” unveiled a massive figure – complete with mask and cloak – looming over the stage and the audience, the band utilizing the theatricality of stadium rock to its fullest as they brought songs from the album to life. The encore (“Kill or Be Killed”, followed by “Knights of Cydonia”) turned the cloaked figure into a demonic entity, its limbs extending out into the crowd like something out of a hellish fever dream. “Kill or Be Killed” is one of the heaviest songs on Will of the People, and it’s brought to life with a massive display of fire and a crushing wall of sound. Muse’s Will of the People tour is one for the books, and it is indeed their biggest and best performance yet.

Muse’s tour continues tomorrow in Portland, OR at the Moda Center. For more information and to get tickets, click here.

Muse Set List
Will of the People
Interlude
Hysteria
Psycho
Map of the Problematique
Won’t Stand Down
Compliance
Through Contagion
Verona
Time Is Running Out
The 2nd Law: Isolated System
Resistance
You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween
Madness
We Are Fucking Fucked
The Dark Side
Supermassive Black Hole
Plug In Baby
Behold, The Glove (Matt Bellamy song)
Uprising
Prelude
Starlight

Encore:
Kill or Be Killed
Knights of Cydonia