London Royal Albert Hall 2008 (gig)

Matthew Bellamy

The band during Megalomania

Various items

Dominic Howard

Schedule

Christopher Wolstenholme

Access all areas back-stage pass

Balloons and crowd

Set-list sheet

Guitar shredding

Choir seated ticket stub

Muse show
Venue	Royal Albert Hall (Teenage Cancer Trust event)
Date	12th April 2008
Location	London
Country	United Kingdom
Songs	16
Support	The Futureheads
Start (UTC+1)	20:00, 18:45 (doors)
Capacity	5,544
Price (GBP)	19.50–70.00 » 19.50 ([?])[source?] 39.50–49.50 (west choir, east choir, circle) 49.50 (arena – stood) 49.50 (stalls, second tier box, loggia box, grand tier box) 70.00 ([?])[source?]
Sold out?	Yes

Gig nav
My Coke Fest, Cape Town	←	Teenage Cancer Trust event	→	Rock in Rio

Information

Muse had originally been approached by TCT concert organiser Roger Daltrey of The Who a "few" years beforehand, after performing at the same unspecified festival, which Dominic Howard later thought was Belgian. This festival may have been Rock Werchter 2006. Due to other obligations, Muse were unable to participate until 2008, when Daltry asked Muse again to play the event.

Matthew Bellamy stated in a February 18th interview that Muse would be performing in the Royal Albert Hall as part of a cancer charity event. He had heard of the event within the past "couple" of days and decided to partake in the event, partly due to wanting to play a relatively small capacity venue. The following day, the MTV UK website claimed that Muse would be performing on the 12th April. Both MTV and VH1, which helps organise the event, are subsidiary companies of Viacom. The date was confirmed by the Muse website on the 20th of February.

The official lineup was announced on the 21st of February, while ticket sale started following morning at 10:00. Seemingly resulting from the number of people attempting to purchase the relatively small number of tickets available, Seetickets went down shortly prior to the sale starting. Soon after the sale started and before tickets sold out, re-sellers had started listing theirs on eBay with a "Buy It Now" of the order of £300.

From March 26th to 17:00 on the 30th of March, choir area tickets were put up for raffle in pairs, each ticket of which cost £10. The choir area was situated behind the band, on either side of the pipe organ.[source?] 278 further tickets were reserved for those entrants who didn't win the raffle, which were sold out shortly after going on sale.[source?]

While Bellamy expressed a desire to perform with an orchestra in a venue similar to the Royal Albert Hall, he felt that hiring musicians at such late notice would be unfair. In the lead up to the concert, fans speculated as to the possibility of Megalomania being played on the venue's organ, which is second largest in the United Kingdom. It was played during the afternoon's soundcheck, purportedly along with at least Butterflies & Hurricanes, Feeling Good, and Bliss[source?]. There apparently were spotlights on the organ and moreover the organ apparently had a microphone and camera on it.. Muse did end up playing Megalomania on the pipe organ, as the first song of the encore. Morgan Nicholls played an ukulele during the song.

During an interview that took place before the afternoon sound-check but not published until after the concert, whilst frequently looking behind himself at the organ Matthew Bellamy explained his fear of playing a wrong note on it. As the band hadn't played the song in nearly six years, he had to re-learn the part for the occasion, which he did on the day itself. At the point of this pre-sound check interview, Bellamy was still unsure as to whether the band would play Megalomania, at that point it was down to whether the sound-check was successful.

The original event start was reported to be 19:30 with the doors opening at 18:45, but Muselive reported it more accurately the day before the concert as the support starting at 20:00, from a Muse management e-mail. The full schedule can be seen below. Given these times, Muse had a maximum of two hours to perform during, although The Who apparently ran over the alloted time for their TCT gig of a previous year.[source?]

The Show

Of the show itself, a different, new New Born riff outro was played, of which speculation was soon started as to it being the precursor to a new song, though the riff was actually Headup by the Deftones. Invincible was played slower than it usually has been. Fury again was played in B flat. Bliss made a return, in extended form accompanied by balloons.

After Megalomania, Christopher Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard played the Osaka Jam (officially known as 'Drum and Bass'), which is popular with die-hard fans, while Bellamy came back to the stage after playing the organ. When he returned, he joined Wolstenholme and Howard for the last part of the jam, which led into the intro of Plug In Baby. This was the last known performance of the Close Encounters riff.

Schedule

• 18:45 - Doors
• 20:00 - The Futureheads
• 21:00 - Muse
• 23:00 - Curfew

Speech

After Take a Bow	Bellamy	"Hello Royal Albert Hall, how are you guys doing? ... A great pleasure to be here for you".
After Map of the Problematique	Howard	"Thank you very much, Albert Hall. Nice to see you".
After Supermassive Black Hole		"Cheers".
After New Born	Bellamy	Thank you very much, cheers".
After Butterflies & Hurricanes		"Cheers".
After Fury	Bellamy	"Thank you very much".
After Feeling Good
Before Invincible		"It's a great honour to be here in this great venue... and for such a great cause. I'd like to say a particular thank you to Roger Daltry for organising and inviting us to play".
After Hysteria		"Thank you very much".
After Starlight
Before Bliss	Howard	"Thank you London. Thanks to you guys up here as well".
Before Megalomania	Bellamy	"Well seeing as we're playing the Albert Hall, I thought it'd be rude not to play this beast!".
Before Knights of Cydonia		"Thank you very much for coming down tonight, it's been a great pleasure to be here. Certainly going to play here again."
After Knights of Cydonia		"Thank you very much. Royal Albert Hall we love you, thank you. Cheers Cancer Trust. See you at V Festival".
	Howard	Thank you London, it's been a pleasure to be here this evening. [?] Thank you very much, we'll see you again soon, you guys are great, cheers".

Media

Multiple audience recordings in lossless (FLAC) format can be found on MuseBootlegs here, here, or here.

pmb1202/citizenpb recorded video of the gig which can be found on YouTube here. pmb1202/citizenpb later muxed his video with the SOUSOUS FLAC audio and a secondary video source and shared it as a DVD torrent. It can be found here and here.

The following year, another fan DVD was released. It was originally planned to be screened in a Cinema, which was cancelled due to "an anonymous caller". The DVD features 8+ camera angles all donated by video recorders. It also uses SOUSOUS's audio, layered with Petrock's, mixed into Surround Sound. This video can be found on MuseBootlegs here.

The Muse website published a pro-shot video of Megalomania as the 2011 Christmas present.

You can watch the full perfomance here

In October 2020, the Teenage Cancer Trust YouTube channel uploaded HD pro-shot footage of Fury, Invincible, Bliss, Megalomania & Knights of Cydonia. The full video can be watched here or downloaded from MuseBootlegs here.

Setlist

1. Take a Bow
   ^{(Manson Kaoss)}
2. Map of the Problematique + Who Knows Who riff
   ^{(Manson Black Midi)}
3. Supermassive Black Hole
   ^{(Manson Kaoss)}
4. New Born + Headup riff + Ashamed outro
   ^{(Manson Red Glitter, Black Fender Jazz Bass)}
5. Butterflies & Hurricanes
   ^{(Manson Mirror)}
6. Fury
   ^{(Manson Black Midi, red Fender Jazz Bass)}
7. Feeling Good
   ^{(White Kawai)}
8. Invincible
   ^{(Manson Kaoss)}
9. Kaoss Pad Riff + Hysteria
   ^{(Manson M1D1 Black, red Fender Jazz Bass)}
10. Starlight
    ^{(Manson Black Midi)}
11. Riff + Bliss (extended)
    ^{(Manson Chrome Bomber)}
12. Whole Lotta Love jam + Bombtrack riff + Jimmy Jam + Voodoo Child (Slight Return) riff + Time Is Running Out
    ^{(Manson Kaoss)}
13. Hangar 18 outro + Stockholm Syndrome + Township Rebellion riff + Agitated outro + riff
    ^{(Manson Red Glitter)}

    Encore

14. Organ improvisation + Megalomania [watch]
    ^{(Pipe organ, Fender Jazz Bass)}
15. Osaka Jam
    ^{(Fender Jazz Bass)}
16. Plug In Baby
    ^{(Manson Mirror, red Fender Jazz Bass)}
17. Close Encounters riff + Knights of Cydonia
    ^{(Manson Chrome Bomber)}

Gallery

Photos by Shirlaine Forrest — courtesy of gigwise.com

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See also

• Royal Albert Hall, London
• Teenage Cancer Trust website

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