REVIEW: Muse, Walk the Moon @ TD Garden 4/10

By Grant Hillyer

Photos by Zoe Salvucci

Opening what would be a packed show at TD Garden on Wednesday, April 10, was Walk the Moon and their high energy set that went straight into their hits. The band consists of Nicholas Petricca, Kevin Ray, Sean Waugaman, Eli Maiman and they got right into their live show after walking out to Elton John’s “Circle of Life.” The setlist contained a variety of songs from each of their albums, including their classic “Anna Sun” and hits “Kamikaze” and “Shut Up and Dance.” Lead singer Nicholas Petricca mentioned multiple times how excited he was to be opening for Muse, claiming he and his bandmates often went to Muse shows when they were younger. The band walked off to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” and it wasn’t long before Muse came out after them.

Touring their new album Simulation Theory, Muse went all out on creating a retro feel to the show. There were lots of neon colored clothes donned by the band and their extras, as well as large neon batons that the dancers wielded as the band played. The extras at times dressed in military uniforms with comically large helmets and guns which shot foam into the air, and at other times backed the band on the trombone or even came down from the ceiling behind the band.

None of that took away from the show, which was highly engaging and full of variety in the setlist. The band, consisting of vocalist-guitarist Matt Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme, and drummer Dominic Howard, was full of energy and was constantly teasing the crowd to keep them engaged and on their feet. Bellamy walked off the main stage onto the runway that went into the crowd multiple times, eliciting roars from the crowd as he shredded the guitar or donned a new set of neon sunglasses. The band even went out onto to runway to perform a stripped-down version of “Dig Down” before they descended below the stage only to reappear moments later.

All of the band’s songs translated very well live, from the new “Thought Contagion,” which worked very well as a sing-along in the arena, to the gospel/acoustic version of “Dig Down” which came out on the album’s deluxe version. The band was fully engaging the whole time, from their old classics to the new singles.

During the band’s encore, featuring a number of cover snippets such as Nirvana’s “Negative Creep,”  a Terminator-like android popped up behind the band, clawing and waving around as the band played in front of it. Bellamy took a few swings at the android before finishing the show with Muse’s frenetic live staple, “Knights of Cydonia,” as the lyrics to the song flashed on the huge screen behind him and as extras released balloons into the crowd.

Muse by Zoe Salvucci