Muse & Cold War Kids | 08.10.07 | Philly

Words by: Chris Pacifico

Muse & Cold War Kids :: 08.10.07 :: Festival Pier @ Penn’s Landing :: Philadelphia, PA

Muse

After a heat wave that lasted all week long, the temperature dipped down into the 50s in Philly. Breaking the crisp air, California’s Cold War Kids came out hot featuring their Southern-soul-meets-indie-pop with singer Nathan Willett shimmying around the stage to “We Used to Vacation” and shaking maracas to “St. John.” In the live setting CWK obviously feel the groove, every band member shaking and shuffling to every beat and note. It’s just a shame that they were a warm-up act and not a co-headliner because a set that is less than 45 minutes long from the Fullerton crew just doesn’t do them any justice.

Props were given to whoever was manning the tunes between sets. As the audience was getting zonked off seven dollar plastic bottles of beer and bumping their collective asses to the Justice remix of Simian’s “We Are Your Friends,” the panic mode of Klaxons‘ “Masick,” “Alala” from CSS, The Knife‘s “We Share Our Mothers Health,” and some White Stripes, Eagles of Death Metal and AC/DC helped the suds settle in. By the time intermission started to fade out, some people wanted to keep it going.

Matthew Bellamy by Domino Postiglione

If there is any band that loves to make a grand entrance, it’s Muse. They pounded our medulla oblongatas by opening with “Knights of Cydonia,” part Morricone with a little Yes, The Wall and a bridge with that “dar-der-der-der” style of Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi in Matthew Bellamy‘s guitar. Bellamy belted out his falsetto like he was atop a desolate mountain screaming for anyone to hear his call. The rhythm section of bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard proved their might on “Hysteria” and the super dramatic “Butterflies and Hurricanes.” And the baby grand piano came into play on a cover of the great Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.”

Bands like Muse put on a live gig that’ll crumble foundations. They come packed with lighting that gives their shows all the pomp and circumstance of a Cecil B. DeMille movie. It’s a world where prog rock and rawk rock meet. The only things missing were a firework displays and Roman columns. Sometimes their extravagance can be a bit too gaudy but Muse makes up for it in how they blow minds defying how much noise just three men can make. Sometimes bigger can be better.

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