Quick reactions: U2 and Muse

My wife, my friend Matt, and I all went to the concert last night, and it was amazing.  I love U2’s music so I’m into it to begin with, but they really made the stadium feel like an arena. The crazy high tech audio/visual/quadruped space ship really did the job and more important the human showmanship was there too.  I got to hear all the songs I really wanted to hear and now when I listen to some U2 songs they just feel a bit live even though I’ve heard them dozens of times before.

Muse did a good job, although they focused much more on playing as many songs as possible and less on showmanship.  I do agree with Mat that I wish they’d had more time. Not sure what happened there, they started later than expected and there was a reasonable time gap between when they finished and U2 started.  I did get to hear all the songs I was really hyped to hear, Muse leads off with some of their best known ones, notably Knights of Cydonia, so that wasn’t particularly surprising.  I think they did a good job, that said, this was more a U2 crowd than a Muse one, so doing a little more warm-up blather and one less song might have gotten the audience a lot more into the performance.  That said, my friend Guy thinks DC concert goers are basically worthless and weak when it comes to getting into shows.  I’ve been part of some good crowds, notably at the 9:30 club, but I think he had a point here.