Muse Delivers the Neo-Classic-Rock Goods at L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena

Muse was making its eighth visit to downtown L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena, frontman Matt Bellamy reminded the audience, shortly into the trio’s return engagement Thursday night — except rather than call it by its current name, he said the venue would always be Staples Center to the band. He added a joking, mumbled reference to “weird fucking con artists,” presumably a reference to his lack of faith in the state of cryptocurrency. Digital assets are fleeting, but office supplies are forever, right? There is some kind of loose analog there — no pun intended — to the situation with Muse, which is forever using futuristic imagery in its shows but reigns as one of rock’s best bands by its rootedness in a slightly pre-digital past.

Or pasts, plural. Looking around at the full house at Stap—… er, Crypto, you would definitely say the audience counted as intergenerational, by any measure. But the two primary generations were, first, the folks that grew up on KROQ as kids in the last real glory days of alt-rock in the ’90s and 2000s, and then, secondarily, the sub-generation before that, a little older than 44-year-old Bellamy, even, who recognize Muse as probably the last great link in a chain that goes back to the classic rock, or pomp-rock, of the 1970s. There were kids, or relative kids, too, but a lot of them in the company of dads who wanted to show them what rock shows used to be like, and were probably happy to be able to take them to one where the main guy on stage wasn’t pushing or surpassing 80. (Or putting a Star of David on a pig.)

But why spend too much looking around at crowd demographics when Bellamy and company are giving you so much to look at on stage? They’ve actually done more elaborate staging; there were no drones this time. And they’ve done less, too, although only on fleeting, promotional occasions, like the bare-bones mini-tour that had them visiting the nearby Wiltern for an album-launch underplay last October. But compared to what almost anyone else is doing who isn’t either a pop superstar or a possible anti-semite, it’s a lot. The “Will of the People” Tour (named for the group’s ninth album, which came out in August) has two giant inflatables as its main points of visual interest and grandeur, replacing and doubling up on the giant sinister robot that hovered over the rawk on the “Simulation Theory” tour four years ago. Speaking of inflatables, anyway, how you feel about hot air generally will probably be indicative of how you feel about Muse specifically.

I’ll come down as unabashedly in favor, especially when it comes to the highly oxygenated emissions of Bellamy, one of the talented male singers the flagging genre still boasts … a Bono who’s got a few Pavarotti genes spliced into his DNA. Even if he does have to sing “Madness” — the greatest rock power ballad of the last 25 years — a half-step down from the record, his three-octave range is a marvel to aurally behold, at least if you aren’t holding any long-standing grudges against, like, passion. (He’s a guitar hero, too, not incidentally — the 19-second guitar solo in “Madness” sounded even better and more cranked-up than ever.) There is a kind of formula to Muse’s songs — not nearly all of them, but most of ’em that are “hits” — that involves a build from a moody, broody verse to a suspenseful, crescendoing pre-chorus to an explosive peak that is just about as much an aria as rock chorus. And then, rinse and repeat, twice! Over the course of a 22-song set like the one in L.A., you keep thinking Muse just shot their wad too early by placing the most dramatically satisfying song in the set too early, then you’re reminded that there are five more just as viscerally exciting coming down the pike, and they still haven’t remotely gotten to actual clock-punching peaks “Starlight” and “Knights of Cydonia.” In that way it’s a little bit like the “John Wick 4” of rock shows.

But, like a good John Wick director, they also know how to construct musical action sequences with a lot of variety to the formula. And so the set has, as equal highlights, songs that are more furious and less about the big build — like, late in the show, “Plug In Baby,” in which the riff they keep returning to is really more of a chorus than the chorus, or the pure pop-funk falsetto of “Supermassive Black Hole,” which for once has a hook that teasingly descends, instead of the trademark ascent. Other dynamics make sure the musical martial arts are not plateauing on some constant high. One of these built-in lulls is an all-instrumental alternate version of “The Dark Side,” performed by auxillary member Dan Lancaster on slide guitar as a very David Gilmour-esque mood piece, instead of the less satisfying, hyper-pop vocal version that existed on the primary edition of 2018’s “Simulation Theory.” (Lancaster did quite a good job of keeping his composure, seeing as, not too many minutes after this guitar showcase, Bellamy would cede the stage once again to the sidekick — not for another instrumental, but so Lancaster could propose to his girlfriend. She said yes.)

Also providing a break in the action, while ramping up the pomp and circumstance of the whole thing, were some FX-filled videos that offered some conceptual continuity to the concert, and offered visual teases of the giant props to come. The first of these segments had a rioter in a mask made up of mirrors being stricken down by a towering, strangely uniformed, horned figure representing The Man. A few songs into the show, the visage of the mirror-masked man appeared behind the band as the first giant inflatable of the night, his head moving slightly to the right or left. When it came time for the encore, he was replaced by his evil nemesis, the possibly “Fantasia”-inspired, horned authoritarian dude, with giant gloved hands outstretched on either side of the massive stage. Did his eyes glow in the dark at appropriate moments? Of course they did. It was, without a doubt, unbelievably cheesy. But you might not think so if you’re, like, Iron Maiden fan, and seeing this giant dude pop out on stage is as natural as seeing Eddie in your nightly dreams.

Accepting something as goofy as these giant inflatables means accepting Bellamy as a little bit of a contradiction at times. He’s the guy who can expound at length on the intricacies of changing global politics who also has no shame for ’80s horror movies and video games. (On this tour, they perform the recent song “You Make Me Feel Like Halloween,” an homage to John Carpenter and Stephen King, preceded by Bellamy sitting at an organ to knock out “Toccata and Fugue in D minor,” a piece so associated with old horror films it can only count as comedy anymore.) And he’s the guy who told Variety last year that, left to his own devices, he might write mostly beautiful music in more of an Enya vein, but also loves Rage Against the Machine so much that you can’t believe Muse’s headbanging side isn’t his first and final love. If you’re going to love part of what Muse does, you kind of take it all — the sense of life-and-death importance that’s implicit in most of their best songs, and the old-school showmanship that comes with that. It’s easier to take the whole shebang, of course, if you have any nostalgia for giant puppets of teachers who won’t leave them kids alone and that sort of thing, and don’t mind seeing the theatricality transposed into the present.

Really, though, for all of the videos and balloons, Muse’s is more of a straightforward rock show than those visual accoutrements might lead you to believe. I caught their promo show at the Wiltern last fall, the one with no props or special effects, just a big emphasis on their most aggro tracks — and didn’t think this return to their normal, full-size production would be as satisfying. Actually, it was, even the presence of a ramp meant Bellamy spent less time standing anywhere near the band’s great bass player, Christopher Tony Wolstenholme, or phenomenal drummer, Dominic Howard, as a visual power trio than usual. In some ways, despite the elaborate lighting and rigging, it felt like a return to ’70s arena shows that predated the onset of massive props and effects.

One of the most ironic things about it was how many of the bells and whistles of the show were downright primitive things that have historically delighted audiences. Very, very early in the show, long, colorful streamers were released. When was the last time you saw streamers in a concert? A few songs later, it was confetti. When was the last time you saw confetti? Well, probably a lot more recently than the streamers, but still. And from there, the band moved on to… a snow effect. No wonder Bellamy prefers to keep calling the venue Staples Center instead of Crypto: As digitally minded and forward-looking as a guy who spends part of the evening dressed in a suit of LED lights may be, he’s keeping alive the best aspects of the age of paper products.