My first Muse gig!
After a LOT OF TIME, I finally got updated with my life to post my experience! Better now that I remember all of it and I don't want to forget any part of it.
First of all, I had been counting the days until November 18th since April so I was getting ansty about a lot of things. "What if I forget the tickets? What if we get there late? What if there's a problem with my tickets and I can't enter the venue?"... silly things, now that I think about it.
So, my dad (he went with me since my mum doesn't like going out of the city) made hotel reservations and bought bus tickets for us to travel to Mexico City A DAY BEFORE WE HAD TO GO (Tuesday November 17th), so besides my silly concerns, I was worried about that XD. And here's the thing: My dad and me are very similar. We tend to get angry at the least annoying things, we tend to ALWAYS forget something when we leave any place and we tend to arrive late everywhere we go because we thought we had time. Put two people like that together on an importan trip and I guess it was okay to worry. And then we were ready
November 17th (The Prelude)
My city is 11-12 hours away from Mexico City by bus, so we had to leave that night in order to arrive on Wednesday in the morning. I had to go to school (eugh) and I didn't eat a lot that day (Think about that, my family and almost everybody knows I'm the one who eats the most). I had some assignments to do before leaving (because the world may stop, but school never ends) so I ended up packing at 8 p.m. I had made a list of the things I just couldn't forget and thankfully we got on the bus on time with our lonely things (One regular backpack full of all of our things. We're simple like that). Our bus started moving at 10 p.m. it had shitty wi-fi and a small screen in front of every seat in case you wanted to watch a movie. I was avoiding all social sites (Facebook, whatsapp groups, twitter and instagram) because I just knew someone was going to post the setlist of the first Muse gig that night. And call me cheesy or hopeless, but I wanted to be surprised by every song when the time came for me to listen to Muse.
Here's a funny thing! I fell asleep at 11 pm and I remember waking up at 2 am. when my phone buzzed with a new whatsapp message. I remember opening the message and reading "Setlist Mexico City November 17th" and I remember reading it... but I went back to sleep and when I woke up again at 8-ish, I couldn't remember more than the first 3 songs (Drones, Psycho and Dead Inside... and it wasn't exactly a surprise XD) so my forgetful mind saved me from spoiling myself.
November 18th Morning-Afternoon (The Interlude)
We arrived to Mexico City at 9 a.m. Now, there are seven things you should know about this city:
1) You're always at risk of being robbed, so you must hide your valuable things (i.e. don't use your phone in public and keep your money in closed pockets)
2) The taxi fee is ridiculously high
3) Travelling in the tube is fast and cheap but all day it's full, so it will always feel like an eternal and sweaty embrace
4) The city is sinking. This is happening because the bases of almost all the city were built over the ruins of an ancient Mexican town (Tenochtitlan). There is existing data of the city's decreasing height over the past decades
5) Pollution is awful. There is a permanent fog over the horizon wherever you look. It's like a constant fog but this is actually the outcome of so many industrial processes in the city.
6) There are some big LGBTQ+ organizations in the city and their campaigns are amazing (there are signs at almost every bus/tube station, and signs in a lot of places that say "in this place we don't judge people for their skin colour, sexual orientation, age, gender, ethnic origin, or any other criteria". Sadly, besides these organizations, the general population is actually rude towards non-hetero people.
7) People in Mexico city drive like there's no tomorrow. Cars, cabs, buses, EVERY VEHICLE seems to be rushing and this can be really dangerous when you're walking through the city.
Now, since our check in was at 12, my dad and I went to find something to eat and we found the nearest station to take the tube before going back and checking in. We walked so we easily spent 3 hours doing just that. Once we were in our room, I got rid of all the pillows on my bed and I fell asleep for 3 hours. I woke up with a killing headache and rushing to get ready (we were planning to leave early because we didn't know how much time it would take to get to the Palacio de los Deportes) and we left at 6 pm. I managed to survive my first tube ride so... yay for that!
There was a bridge connecting the station we got down on and the Palacio, and it was full of people seeling Muse fabric bracelets, mugs, shot glasses, t-shirts and stuff like that (all non-official merchandise) I decided to avoid buying things for now. We went to our gate and I swear I sighed in relief after they scanned our tickets.
November 18th Night (Drones Time!)
Once inside, there was just one place to buy Muse merchandise and I bought a hoodie, I loved it. There were some fans competing to receive Muse t-shirts if they answered some questions and in another place there were some HUGE DRUMS and you could get more t-shirts if you had the guts to go up and sing a Muse song. It was close to 7:30 pm. (Tickets said the concert would start an hour later) but we decided to find our seats. I was really nervous since this was my first gig in another city. Like, anything could go so wrong and I would be devastated. Fortunately, we found our seats with no problems. And, to my giddy surprise, we were way closer than I had thought. Unfortunately, I had a painful headache so I was determined to make it go away before I saw Muse.
I was watching the people around me and I felt so comfortable (a little cliche, I know) because all these people loved Muse too! I was able to watch the venue when it had half of the seats free until it was completely full. Everytime a tech person came on stage we all cheered (why, I don't really know, but it was fun). I could see some big white spheres above the stage and at the time I didn't knew what those were. At almost 8:30 the lights went off and the band New Regime appeared (they're from San Diego and they knew swear words in Spanish, LOL). I liked them, even if their sound was too rough. Their set lasted half an hour and when the technicians removed their equipment from stage, MY HEADACHE WAS GONE!
I decided that moment was close enough to spoil myself so I finally looked at the playlist from the day before so I was super excited but I also knew what to expect. Considering that setlist had Plug in Baby and Apocalypse Please my mind was all "!!!!" When they turned off the lights again and Drones started, it was chaos (so much screaming!). The big white things (drones) started flying around the stage and you simply HAD to look at them. I was doing that when I glanced down and screamed again because the guys were on some weird platforms ready to come out (from my seat I was close to one end of the stage and I was able to see Chris). By the time Drones ended and they started playing Psycho, my smile became permanent.
I can't exactly detail what happened and what I felt during each song but I can manage to point out some things:
The visuals were absolutely amazing, specially during The Globalist, because I swear to God, it felt like a damn 3D film. The hands with strings on The Handler were also unbelievable.
I had a constant joke with a fellow Muse friend from high school. We called Matt a "mad cricket" for all his jumping around on stage, and watching him constantly LIVE instead of watching some bits on a screen only confirmed the nickname. Some of those jumps... I thought he was about to fall on some of them! Also, I play the bass and I was simply mesmerized by Chris. He is a great bassist and the way he plays on stage only cemented this opinion.
I was expecting Plug in Baby or maybe the next song, according to the first setlist (maybe I wouldn't be so lucky), but then I heard those damn notes. BLISS. And I almost cried (instead of that, I screamed until my throat hurt), since Bliss is my absolute favorite song (along with Megalomania, Panic Station and Undisclosed Desires), and I was NOT expecting that. I sang along and I jumped and I felt every second of the song. I felt like I could die in peace right after the song ended. And I also felt like the luckiest person in the world. They played Undisclosed Desires, which I absolutely adored, too (favorite songs, remember?) I felt so high but relaxed at the same time. I had never felt that way before.
Sadly, they didn't play Hysteria (I was dying to see how Chris played that) but instead they played Resistance. Now, I must admit Resistance was one of those songs I underestimated, because I loved the beginning and the end but I tended to be all "meh" during the verses and chorus. Listening to it right there changed my mind. The song carries such a strong spirit to everyone listening! And yes, the beginning and the ending are still my favorite bits but now I like a song a lot more. (Like, I constantly need to listen to it XD)
I fell in love with Dominic Howard. Don't get me wrong, I love all of them, but I couldn't take my eyes off him! Maybe it was because of my newly acquired knowledge of drum playing, maybe it was because my current crush is a drummer and maybe these things made me pay more attention to how he played the drums. But yeah, I deeply respect drummers, and Dom definitely looks like he's always having fun and giving his best on every song.
Something I didn't like was the crowd's main attitude when they played The Globalist. There was cheering, yes, but from the lack of enthusiastic singing-along, I could tell a lot of people weren't familiar with the song. I was fortunate enough to be seated close to a hardcore Muse fan. He spent all the concert headbanging and jumping and singing to every song with me (shame I didn't get his name or something). I also knew a friend of mine was like 10 ft away from stage and he said people down there were confused during that song. He initiated some arm waving and clapping on the middle part of the song, and it seemed to work, but yeah. I was expecting more from the people XD Maybe I just thought they would all freak out with me.
Drones played again when everything was dark and it was the perfect way to calm everybody down for the end of the setlist. And certainly Mercy and Knights of Cydonia were perfect to recover the madness of all the people screaming and jumping and singing along with the guys. My mum spent months (from April to October) saying "What if you're getting excited for nothing? For all you know, you could stop liking that band or they won't be like you expect them to be and you'll be disappointed"
And no, mum, I didn't stop liking that band, they were way more than I expected them to be and if something, I love them even more!
November 19th Early, Early Hours (Aftermath)
When the concert ended, it was a massive chaos to get out of the venue. I overheard people saying how amazing it was, how some of them had went to the gig the day before and how it was a shame they didn't play Hysteria. There were lots of people and a lot of taxi cabs waiting for people to need their services. But damn, the fees were expensive! My dad and I were desperate enough to pay the price because it was close to midnight and we wanted to sleep some before leaving the hotel (check out was at midday the next day). Unfortunately, we got lost after getting out of the taxi. My dad was convinced he knew where we were but at the end I saved us by checking my phone's GPS. We made a stop in a 7 Eleven to buy soda (I needed it).
We arrived at the hotel almost at 1:30 a.m. (it was faaaaar), and I was so high that I managed to get asleep until 3 a.m. I woke up at 11:40 a.m. Completely happy, remembering and getting ready to leave the hotel.
Even with the rushing and worrying, it was the best night of my life. I will always remember it.
First of all, I had been counting the days until November 18th since April so I was getting ansty about a lot of things. "What if I forget the tickets? What if we get there late? What if there's a problem with my tickets and I can't enter the venue?"... silly things, now that I think about it.
So, my dad (he went with me since my mum doesn't like going out of the city) made hotel reservations and bought bus tickets for us to travel to Mexico City A DAY BEFORE WE HAD TO GO (Tuesday November 17th), so besides my silly concerns, I was worried about that XD. And here's the thing: My dad and me are very similar. We tend to get angry at the least annoying things, we tend to ALWAYS forget something when we leave any place and we tend to arrive late everywhere we go because we thought we had time. Put two people like that together on an importan trip and I guess it was okay to worry. And then we were ready
November 17th (The Prelude)
My city is 11-12 hours away from Mexico City by bus, so we had to leave that night in order to arrive on Wednesday in the morning. I had to go to school (eugh) and I didn't eat a lot that day (Think about that, my family and almost everybody knows I'm the one who eats the most). I had some assignments to do before leaving (because the world may stop, but school never ends) so I ended up packing at 8 p.m. I had made a list of the things I just couldn't forget and thankfully we got on the bus on time with our lonely things (One regular backpack full of all of our things. We're simple like that). Our bus started moving at 10 p.m. it had shitty wi-fi and a small screen in front of every seat in case you wanted to watch a movie. I was avoiding all social sites (Facebook, whatsapp groups, twitter and instagram) because I just knew someone was going to post the setlist of the first Muse gig that night. And call me cheesy or hopeless, but I wanted to be surprised by every song when the time came for me to listen to Muse.
Here's a funny thing! I fell asleep at 11 pm and I remember waking up at 2 am. when my phone buzzed with a new whatsapp message. I remember opening the message and reading "Setlist Mexico City November 17th" and I remember reading it... but I went back to sleep and when I woke up again at 8-ish, I couldn't remember more than the first 3 songs (Drones, Psycho and Dead Inside... and it wasn't exactly a surprise XD) so my forgetful mind saved me from spoiling myself.
November 18th Morning-Afternoon (The Interlude)
We arrived to Mexico City at 9 a.m. Now, there are seven things you should know about this city:
1) You're always at risk of being robbed, so you must hide your valuable things (i.e. don't use your phone in public and keep your money in closed pockets)
2) The taxi fee is ridiculously high
3) Travelling in the tube is fast and cheap but all day it's full, so it will always feel like an eternal and sweaty embrace
4) The city is sinking. This is happening because the bases of almost all the city were built over the ruins of an ancient Mexican town (Tenochtitlan). There is existing data of the city's decreasing height over the past decades
5) Pollution is awful. There is a permanent fog over the horizon wherever you look. It's like a constant fog but this is actually the outcome of so many industrial processes in the city.
6) There are some big LGBTQ+ organizations in the city and their campaigns are amazing (there are signs at almost every bus/tube station, and signs in a lot of places that say "in this place we don't judge people for their skin colour, sexual orientation, age, gender, ethnic origin, or any other criteria". Sadly, besides these organizations, the general population is actually rude towards non-hetero people.
7) People in Mexico city drive like there's no tomorrow. Cars, cabs, buses, EVERY VEHICLE seems to be rushing and this can be really dangerous when you're walking through the city.
Now, since our check in was at 12, my dad and I went to find something to eat and we found the nearest station to take the tube before going back and checking in. We walked so we easily spent 3 hours doing just that. Once we were in our room, I got rid of all the pillows on my bed and I fell asleep for 3 hours. I woke up with a killing headache and rushing to get ready (we were planning to leave early because we didn't know how much time it would take to get to the Palacio de los Deportes) and we left at 6 pm. I managed to survive my first tube ride so... yay for that!
There was a bridge connecting the station we got down on and the Palacio, and it was full of people seeling Muse fabric bracelets, mugs, shot glasses, t-shirts and stuff like that (all non-official merchandise) I decided to avoid buying things for now. We went to our gate and I swear I sighed in relief after they scanned our tickets.
November 18th Night (Drones Time!)
Once inside, there was just one place to buy Muse merchandise and I bought a hoodie, I loved it. There were some fans competing to receive Muse t-shirts if they answered some questions and in another place there were some HUGE DRUMS and you could get more t-shirts if you had the guts to go up and sing a Muse song. It was close to 7:30 pm. (Tickets said the concert would start an hour later) but we decided to find our seats. I was really nervous since this was my first gig in another city. Like, anything could go so wrong and I would be devastated. Fortunately, we found our seats with no problems. And, to my giddy surprise, we were way closer than I had thought. Unfortunately, I had a painful headache so I was determined to make it go away before I saw Muse.
I was watching the people around me and I felt so comfortable (a little cliche, I know) because all these people loved Muse too! I was able to watch the venue when it had half of the seats free until it was completely full. Everytime a tech person came on stage we all cheered (why, I don't really know, but it was fun). I could see some big white spheres above the stage and at the time I didn't knew what those were. At almost 8:30 the lights went off and the band New Regime appeared (they're from San Diego and they knew swear words in Spanish, LOL). I liked them, even if their sound was too rough. Their set lasted half an hour and when the technicians removed their equipment from stage, MY HEADACHE WAS GONE!
I decided that moment was close enough to spoil myself so I finally looked at the playlist from the day before so I was super excited but I also knew what to expect. Considering that setlist had Plug in Baby and Apocalypse Please my mind was all "!!!!" When they turned off the lights again and Drones started, it was chaos (so much screaming!). The big white things (drones) started flying around the stage and you simply HAD to look at them. I was doing that when I glanced down and screamed again because the guys were on some weird platforms ready to come out (from my seat I was close to one end of the stage and I was able to see Chris). By the time Drones ended and they started playing Psycho, my smile became permanent.
I can't exactly detail what happened and what I felt during each song but I can manage to point out some things:
The visuals were absolutely amazing, specially during The Globalist, because I swear to God, it felt like a damn 3D film. The hands with strings on The Handler were also unbelievable.
I had a constant joke with a fellow Muse friend from high school. We called Matt a "mad cricket" for all his jumping around on stage, and watching him constantly LIVE instead of watching some bits on a screen only confirmed the nickname. Some of those jumps... I thought he was about to fall on some of them! Also, I play the bass and I was simply mesmerized by Chris. He is a great bassist and the way he plays on stage only cemented this opinion.
I was expecting Plug in Baby or maybe the next song, according to the first setlist (maybe I wouldn't be so lucky), but then I heard those damn notes. BLISS. And I almost cried (instead of that, I screamed until my throat hurt), since Bliss is my absolute favorite song (along with Megalomania, Panic Station and Undisclosed Desires), and I was NOT expecting that. I sang along and I jumped and I felt every second of the song. I felt like I could die in peace right after the song ended. And I also felt like the luckiest person in the world. They played Undisclosed Desires, which I absolutely adored, too (favorite songs, remember?) I felt so high but relaxed at the same time. I had never felt that way before.
Sadly, they didn't play Hysteria (I was dying to see how Chris played that) but instead they played Resistance. Now, I must admit Resistance was one of those songs I underestimated, because I loved the beginning and the end but I tended to be all "meh" during the verses and chorus. Listening to it right there changed my mind. The song carries such a strong spirit to everyone listening! And yes, the beginning and the ending are still my favorite bits but now I like a song a lot more. (Like, I constantly need to listen to it XD)
I fell in love with Dominic Howard. Don't get me wrong, I love all of them, but I couldn't take my eyes off him! Maybe it was because of my newly acquired knowledge of drum playing, maybe it was because my current crush is a drummer and maybe these things made me pay more attention to how he played the drums. But yeah, I deeply respect drummers, and Dom definitely looks like he's always having fun and giving his best on every song.
Something I didn't like was the crowd's main attitude when they played The Globalist. There was cheering, yes, but from the lack of enthusiastic singing-along, I could tell a lot of people weren't familiar with the song. I was fortunate enough to be seated close to a hardcore Muse fan. He spent all the concert headbanging and jumping and singing to every song with me (shame I didn't get his name or something). I also knew a friend of mine was like 10 ft away from stage and he said people down there were confused during that song. He initiated some arm waving and clapping on the middle part of the song, and it seemed to work, but yeah. I was expecting more from the people XD Maybe I just thought they would all freak out with me.
Drones played again when everything was dark and it was the perfect way to calm everybody down for the end of the setlist. And certainly Mercy and Knights of Cydonia were perfect to recover the madness of all the people screaming and jumping and singing along with the guys. My mum spent months (from April to October) saying "What if you're getting excited for nothing? For all you know, you could stop liking that band or they won't be like you expect them to be and you'll be disappointed"
And no, mum, I didn't stop liking that band, they were way more than I expected them to be and if something, I love them even more!
November 19th Early, Early Hours (Aftermath)
When the concert ended, it was a massive chaos to get out of the venue. I overheard people saying how amazing it was, how some of them had went to the gig the day before and how it was a shame they didn't play Hysteria. There were lots of people and a lot of taxi cabs waiting for people to need their services. But damn, the fees were expensive! My dad and I were desperate enough to pay the price because it was close to midnight and we wanted to sleep some before leaving the hotel (check out was at midday the next day). Unfortunately, we got lost after getting out of the taxi. My dad was convinced he knew where we were but at the end I saved us by checking my phone's GPS. We made a stop in a 7 Eleven to buy soda (I needed it).
We arrived at the hotel almost at 1:30 a.m. (it was faaaaar), and I was so high that I managed to get asleep until 3 a.m. I woke up at 11:40 a.m. Completely happy, remembering and getting ready to leave the hotel.
Even with the rushing and worrying, it was the best night of my life. I will always remember it.