London Earls Court Exhibition Centre 2004 - 20th (gig)

The Small Print

Pyrotechnics during Butterflies & Hurricanes

Muscle Museum

Standing ticket

Seated ticket stub

Muse show
Venue	Earls Court Exhibition Centre
Date	20th December 2004
Location	London[source?]
Country	United Kingdom
Songs	19[source?]
Support	Secret Machines, The Zutons[source?]
Start (UTC)	20:00[source?], 18:00 (doors)
Capacity	19,000[source?]
Price (GBP)	25.00
Sold out?	Yes[source?]

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Earls Court Exhibition Centre – 19th	←	Earls Court Exhibition Centre – 20th	→	Auditorium Field

Information

Often considered one of Muse's greatest ever performances, the two nights at Earls Court felt like a very special occasion. The band were coming back home for the first time after a very long tour in the USA, and just in time to wrap up the year before Christmas.

The concert was announced on the 21st of October, the reason citing "unbelievable" demand for the previous night's pre-sale. General sale started on the 23rd October 2004 at 09:00. More tickets were put on sale on the 19th of November at 09:00 through gigsandtours.com.

Last performance of The Small Print in the UK and last performance of Sing for Absolution until 2007.

The Show

This was the 'black jacket' gig and featured a slightly different setlist from the night before.

Dom and Chris opened up the gig, while Matt ran around backstage with a camera (as he did the previous night).[source?] However, this time Matt had a monkey hand puppet on which he danced around on camera.[source?]

After The Small Print, Matt broke the Ibanez guitar he was playing. He subsequently picked it up, walked to the edge of the stage, and threw the guitar into the audience.[source?] The ending of Micro Cuts slowed down to an almost complete stop. Tom Kirk said that Blackout "was fucking ace", in response to the question "how cool was blackout! ;)".

Speech

After Apocalypse Please	Bellamy	"Thank you [?]".
After Hysteria		"Thank you".
After The Small Print	Howard
After Sing for Absolution		"How's it going Earls Court? [crowd cheers] Nice to see you again".
After Space Dementia		"Thank you".
After New Born	Bellamy	"Thank you very much. Cheers".
After Butterflies & Hurricanes		"Thank you".
After Plug In Baby		"Thank you!"
After Time Is Running Out		"Cheers!"
Before Blackout	Bellamy	"Thank you very much, cheers ... Ok, this next song, instead of getting your lighters out, everyone get out their mobile phones and switch their lights on".
Before Stockholm Syndrome	Bellamy	"Thank you very much Earls Court! Thank you very much for coming, it's been a fucking great pleasure to play for you. Means a lot coming home to a big crowd like this, so thanks very much for coming. This is uh, we'd like to say, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year".
	Howard	"Merry Christmas. ... Cheers. We'll see you next time, this song is called Stockholm Syndrome".
After Stockholm Syndrome		"Thank you very much Earls Court! You guys have been amazing".
	Wolstenholme	"Cheers".
	Howard	"Cheers, we'll see you next time".

Media

The Small Print and Stockholm Syndrome feature on the Absolution Tour DVD, although this version of The Small Print was edited in post-production to add a heavy distortion effect to Matt's vocals.

Butterflies & Hurricanes and Ruled by Secrecy from this concert were the first videos released of the two nights, along with The Small Print from the day before - these were put on Muse.mu. XFM broadcast the gig in its entirety aside from Glorious, which was replaced by a recording of Dead Star from the previous night. Multiple versions of the XFM broadcast can be found on MuseBootlegs here, here, and here as well as a "remaster" attempt by user GiveMeThePiss that was done in 2020 here.

And interview with XFM that took place in between the two nights can be viewed on YouTube here.

Trivia

Both nights were fully recorded and at the time, were long rumoured to be the band's next commercial DVD. However, during Autumn 2005, Thomas Kirk posted on the official Muse messageboard that the "sound mix wasn't good enough”, so the films were scrapped and the Glastonbury footage from earlier in the year was repurposed and released for the Absolution Tour DVD. Despite this, several pro-shots from across both nights have subsequently been released, including The Small Print and Stockholm Syndrome from the 20th that were included on the Absolution Tour DVD as bonus footage.

As mentioned above, after The Small Print, Matt broke his Ibanez guitar and subsequently walked to the edge of the stage and threw the guitar into the audience. Matt also did this the night before. However, on this occasion, the guitar wasn't retrieved by security and ultimately ended up in the possession of a lucky fan who was pictured with the guitar in the nearby London Underground after the gig.

Lucky man who caught the Destroyer

Setlist

1. Dracula Mountain (instrumental)
2. Intro + Apocalypse Please
3. Hysteria
   ^{(Manson Bomber)}
4. The Small Print + Psycho riff [watch]
   ^{(Ibanez Destroyer, ?)}
5. Sing for Absolution [watch]
   ^{(Manson 007)}
6. Micro Cuts (extended outro) [watch]
   ^{(Manson Delorean, Pedulla ?)}
7. Citizen Erased
8. Take a Bow (instrumental)
9. Space Dementia
10. Ruled by Secrecy [watch]
11. Pre-Sunburn '04 piano intro + Sunburn (keyboard)
12. New Born
    ^{(Manson Delorean, Pedulla ?)}
13. Butterflies & Hurricanes [watch]
    ^{(Manson 007, Pedulla ?)}
14. Muscle Museum
    ^{(Manson Bomber, Pedulla ?)}
15. Bliss
    ^{(Manson Bomber, Pedulla ?)} [1]
16. Plug In Baby
    ^{(Manson Mirror, Pedulla ?)}

    Encore 1

17. Glorious
    ^{(Manson Bomber, Pedulla ?)}
18. Time Is Running Out
    ^{(Manson Mirror, Pedulla ?)}

    Encore 2

19. Blackout
    ^{(Manson Delorean, ?)}
20. Stockholm Syndrome + Township Rebellion riff + Execution Commentary riff + Hyper Chondriac Heavy riff [watch]
    ^{(Manson 007, Pedulla ?)}

Gallery

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See also

• Earls Court Exhibition Centre, London

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