When was the last time you sat in the audience, breathless with anticipation, offering little shouts every time a roadie walked across the stage to tinker with a bass? When was the last time the lights went down and then dramatically, epically, all at once, to deafening applause? If it’s been a while, it might be time to change that: Muse will be in The Bay Area this December.

We all love $10 dollar shows at our favorite watering holes and we all love to see our favorite hardworking bands try to promote their album and grow as artists, but nothing can quite compare to the all-out campy spectacle that is an arena rock show. Queen, Springsteen, The Who, and U2 deserve their fair share of eye-rolling. Sure, it’s over-the-top, and ridiculous, but all of that posturing is undeniably fun. The legendary arena acts have few descendants today, but one such band is Muse, an indie-ish band gone big in recent years thanks to a few radio hits. Held at the Oracle, this show will have everything: big lights, massive production quality, and actually good songs.

A decade ago, Muse was a rock band closely aligned with exploding acts like The Killers. Synth, big riffs, and an interstellar-galactic space theme dominated their albums with songs like “Super Massive Black Hole”. They never achieved breakout success during the alternative/indie rock resurgence of the early 2000’s, but blew up big in 2006 in England. Led by lead singer Matt Bellamy, whose range includes a powerful falsetto that takes their anthem-y space rock to extraterrestrial heights, the band will power through their nearly-20 year song catalogue with a dizzying array of lights, lasers and stagecraft.

Muse @ The Oracle

January 16, 2016

7:30 PM

Tickets $88