Will of the People Summer Festivals Tour
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simulation Theory World Tour | ← | Will of the People Summer Festivals Tour | → | Will of the People Theatre Tour |
The 2022 tour, where Muse will be playing festivals around Europe throughout the entire summer, with one stop also in the USA, in autumn. The first tour of the Will of the People era, and first tour in three years, since the pandemic in 2020.
Information
Begining on June 4th, 2022, with a performance at Rock am Ring in Germany, and set to end with the gig at Aftershock Festival, in Sacramento, California, this is, as mentioned above, the first major tour, supporting the album, Will of the People. The tour will include Muse's debut performances at Nova Rock and Aftershock festivals, aswel as performances at the Isle of Wight, Eurockéennes and Rock in Rio Lisbon festivals.
Will of the People and Kill or Be Killed made their live debuts on the first leg of the tour, with Compliance and Won't Stand Down being played before. You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween made its debut on the second leg of the tour, in september. Nishe was brought back after 11 years, played before Madness, and also played in full, once, so far, for the first time since 2000. Behold, The Glove, known during the Simulation Theory World Tour as "STT Interstitial 2" was played again, but with the entire band, and also in full.
On June 3rd, 2022, the entire tour's setlist template was leaked on Twitter.
Production
The show is, in some aspects, similar to the previous tour. Similar to Murph the Robot, the tour featured its counterpart, a large inflatable "masked hacker" figure, nicknamed "Will the Hacker", which was set up on-stage behind the band, and was present throughout most of the show (excluding the fist few songs). It's revealed during Won't Stand Down. The main difference between Will the Hacker and Murph is that the hacker is a lot bigger and bulkier. It's made up of three separate parts: Two shoulders, sitting on each side of the head, which is attached to trussing, rotating left to right slightly. Behind the hacker is a small wall of LED light strips, also attached to top trussing. Lights are also used to illuminate the inflatable figure from different angles.
Also similar to the Simulation Theory Tour is the use of The Power Glove. The difference, however, is, that the glove is now outfitted with a built-in iPhone/smartphone, which Matt uses to play the synth solo of Behold, The Glove and the synth intro of Uprising on, using the "NOISE" app. While doing so, Matt is wearing an LED leather jacket, similar to the jacket worn during the previous tour.
The gigs rely on heavy use of pyro, specifically, fire. The show opens with a large burning "WOTP" monogram logo, placed on a stand behind the band, while the band play the song Will of the People. The fire can be re-ignited at any given time, with the ability to lit up each letter separately. Fire machines are used throughout the rest of the show, during Won't Stand Down, Madness, Thought Contagion, Uprising, Kill or Be Killed and (later on during the tour) Knights of Cydonia.
Three video interstitials, named "Chant", "Parkour" and "Driving" are played during the show. These include elements from Will of the People's music video. The "Chant" one is played before Will of the People, and shows the video of the stone heads being torn down, seen during the last part of the music video, and also in the album trailer, posted on Muse's YouTube channel. The "Parkour" one shows the rioter running and jumping over buildings, as seen during the music video's first part, and is played before Time Is Running Out. The "Driving" interstitial shows the vehicles from the music video being driven through the desert and is played before Plug In Baby.
With Mercy being dropped from the setlists, Compliance has taken over as the song during which the streamers are released.
On some dates, due to the logistics, some elements of the production weren't present on all gigs, or were swapped. This notably happened for the Lisbon gig at Rock in Rio, when the main production was headed to London, so the band were forced to use a very minimal stage setup, while replacing the figure of Will the Hacker with Murph the Robot. The burning "WOTP" logo during Will of the People also did not appear in Lisbon and also in Florence, at Firenze Rocks.
Average Setlist
- Will of the People (extended intro)
- Interlude + Hysteria
- [Drill Sergeant] (robot voice) + Psycho
- Pressure
- Won't Stand Down
- Map of the Problematique / Stockholm Syndrome / Citizen Erased
- The Gallery
- Compliance (w/ guitar)
- Thought Contagion
- Time Is Running Out
- Nishe
- Madness
- Supermassive Black Hole
- Plug In Baby (extended outro)
- Behold, The Glove (Matthew Bellamy song)
- Uprising (extended outro)
- Prelude + Starlight
Encore
Notes
- Map of the Problematique and Stockholm Syndrome share their outro riffs, being Duality, Calm Like a Bomb and the Unknown one, although they shuffle through them gig by gig.
- Nishe was initially only played as a short 1-minuite snippet, but it was later extended to almost 2 minutes after the third show.
Exceptions
- Citizen Erased was played at the Rock am Ring gig as an extra song after Madness while Map of the Problematique was played in the rotation slot.
- For the first 4 shows of the tour, Thought Contagion was played between Supermassive Black Hole and Plug in Baby.
- At the Isle of Wight Festival, Won't Stand Down was played after the rotation slot while Citizen Erased was played in said slot.
- You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween, was, so far played once, at Xacobeo Festival. It was played after Thought Contagion and replaced the MOTP/Stockholm Syndrome/Citizen Erased slot
- Tributing Queen Elizabeth II after her passing, "God Save the Queen" was played briefly at Xacobeo Festival, before Interlude
Stats
Gigs
| Date | Venue | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-10-09 | Discovery Park (Aftershock Festival) | Sacramento, CA, USA |
| 2022-10-08 | James B. Beam Distillery (Jim Beam Welcome Sessions) | Sacramento, CA, USA |
| 2022-09-13 | Mediapark (Telekom Street Gigs at Digital X) | Cologne, Germany |
| 2022-09-10 | Sacaba Beach (Andalucía Big Festival by Mad Cool) | Málaga, Spain |
| 2022-09-08 | Estadio de Balaídos (Xacobeo Festival) | Vigo, Spain |
| 2022-07-10 | Chateau d'Aubiry (Les Déferlantes Festival) | Céret, France |
| 2022-07-08 | Espacio Mad Cool (Mad Cool Festival) | Madrid, Spain |
| 2022-07-06 | Chateau de Beauregard (Festival Beauregard) | Cellettes, France |
| 2022-07-03 | Lac de Malsaucy (Les Eurockéennes de Belfort) | Malsaucy, France |
| 2022-07-02 | Festivalgeländ (OpenAir St. Gallen) | St. Gallen, Switzerland |
| 2022-06-29 | OAKA (Ejekt Festival) | Athens, Greece |
| 2022-06-26 | Antiguo Aquapark (Mallorca Live Festival) | Calvià, Spain |
| 2022-06-23 | Tusindårsskoven (Tinderbox Festival) | Odense, Denmark |
| 2022-06-21 | Löver Camping (VOLT Festival) | Sopron, Hungary |
| 2022-06-19 | Seaclose Park (Isle of Wight Festival) | Newport, UK |
| 2022-06-18 | Bela Vista Park (Rock in Rio) | Lisbon, Portugal |
| 2022-06-17 | Visarno Arena (Firenze Rocks) | Florence, Italy |
| 2022-06-11 | Flughafen Tempelhof (Tempelhof Sounds) | Berlin, Germany |
| 2022-06-09 | Pannonia Fields II (Nova Rock Festival) | Nickelsdorf, Austria |
| 2022-06-05 | Zeppelinfeld (Rock im Park) | Nuremberg, Germany |
| 2022-06-04 | Nürburgring (Rock am Ring) | Nürburg, Germany |