Live Review: Muse, Birds Of Tokyo

Four albums in and Birds Of Tokyo can put together a set worthy of an arena slot, the soaring choruses and key changes in tracks like Circles, Broken Bones and Wild At Heart driven by a pulsing rhythm section that makes your teeth rattle. Plans especially benefits from the added grunt drawn from the BEC speaker stacks, before frontman Ian Kenny – moving as awkwardly as ever – squeezes as much life out of the crowd as he can during Lanterns, resulting in hundreds of phones held high, the tech firefly effect surprisingly affecting.
With their latest album The 2nd Law, Muse have embraced machines more than ever before, and they've maintained that futuristic vibe with the production tonight; a pyramid of lights and screens drops to the stage, a series of videos playing before the centrepiece retracts skywards to reveal the band, acting as a quartet tonight with a touring multi-instrumentalist. Around the men runs more screens, more lights; the design resembles a skate park made of plasma, which flashes and pulses during Supermassive Black Hole, Panic Station and Resistance. With his leopard print shirt and peroxide blonde hair, drummer Dom Howard looks like a lost boy from Neverland, while frontman Matt Bellamy and bassist Chris Wolstenholme are upholding the rock quota with the standard black leathers. Bellamy enjoys sporadic excursions down the catwalk that's splitting the pit, using the track to bounce, spin and release some of his most electrifying licks, while Wolstenholme ambles that way to perform the beast of an intro that ushers in Hysteria.
By now the band can do no wrong; even Ennio Morricone's Man With A Harmonica gets a massive response, and when that leads into Knights Of Cydonia you understand why. The riff of the century rips through the place, the crowd bouncing like an earthquake has hit. Smoke bursts violently front of stage and less than halfway in they've already hit a more climatic finale than most acts could muster anytime. The following section of the gig sees the band stretching out, making use of a clear top piano, electronic drums that light up and even sunglasses with small television screen lenses, the latter during Madness, obviously. The older material still rules though, with Time Is Running Out and Plug In Baby sounding gigantic. They extend Unnatural Selection via the end riff from Rage Against The Machine's Freedom, before an outfit change into sleek red jumpsuits begins a blazing conclusion that moves from dub (The 2nd Law: Unsustainable) to rock (Uprising) and anthemic (Starlight), all with kaleidoscopic visuals that would almost work as brainwashing material, were the crowd not complete believers already.