Simulation Theory World Tour

Original promo poster with tour dates

Summer EU tour poster

Entire tour crew, with the band

Simulation Theory World Tour was a headlining world tour, in support of Simulation Theory, that began on 22nd February of 2019 in Houston, Texas and ended on October 15th, 2019 in Lima, Peru. The tour was one of their biggest, if not the biggest tour yet, with over 1 million tickets sold. Howard admitted they've gone "too far" with this tour.

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Information

This is the first Muse tour in which the open-air shows and the festival shows are the same as the arena shows (excluding occasional song additions for open-air shows). It is also the first full headlining tour to not feature song rotations. Despite the tour originally planned to be a global stadium-only tour, the entire first portion of the tour in USA took place in arenas, with the stadium shows starting with the Prague gig on May 26th, 2019. According to George Reeves, Muse's production manager, the initial planning conversations about the tour took place back in 2017.

Before the rehearsals or the tour production itself started, Bellamy talked about two hour sets. He also mentioned playing a "15-minute-or-so metal medley", featuring short bits of heavy songs (not just riffs). He said he'd "like to play that because they would like to fit in as many songs in setlists as they can", without surpassing two hours too much (due to fatigue). This medley was played and tested for the first time at the London Royal Albert Hall gig, and later again at the Chicago Aragon Ballroom gig, both in late 2018. The Royal Albert Hall version of the medley was the only one to include Dead Star, and the Micro Cuts outro.

Propaganda and the Alternate reality version of Algorithm made their debut on the tour, and the acoustic gospel version of Dig Down made it's return after the 2018 Jools Holland performance. Algorithm's AR version has been shortened, and a short transitional segment into Pressure has been added to it.

Pray, a song written by Bellamy for Game of Thrones's compilation album, made it's debut on the tour as an intro to The Dark Side. It featured Chris and Dom playing big concert drums. The song was shortened and features no Valyrian spoken word. Three short instrumental segues, titled "STT Interstitial 1", "STT Interstitial 2" and "STT Interstitial 3" also appeared during the show. All three were instrumental bits taken off of two Bellamy solo pieces called Behold, The Glove (STT Interstitial 2) and Simulation Theory Theme (STT Interstitials 1 & 3). All of these songs, including the instrumental version of Pray, were later included in Matt's solo album, Cryosleep, released in 2021.

Additionally, this was also the first tour, on which Chris's played bass, guitar, drums and a keyboard, all in one set.

Supporting acts

The US shows supporting bands were Walk the Moon and SWMRS (whose only US performances were the at the Washington and Philadelphia gigs - with the band later performing at a few European gigs aswell).

For the European tour, the two were joined by a combination of known local bands, aswell as well-established artists. These were Tom Morello, Weezer, Pale Waves, Dinosaur Pile-Up, The Atavists, Imodium, Kiefer Sutherland, Tiger Cave, Allusinlove, Andy Burrows, The Amazons, Mini Mansions, Nic Cester and Miles Kane, all of which supported Muse at various places during the European legs. For the autumn leg of the EU tour, Nothing But Thieves joined the support line-up again after their tour with Muse in 2015/16 together with Des Rocs.

For the final leg in South America, The Ruse were supporting Muse again after 2013 and 2015, joined by Airbag, which were playing at the Buenos Aires gig in October, and, lastly, Kaiser Chiefs, which supported Muse between the São Paulo and Lima gigs, in October.

Production

The creative director behind the production was Jesse Lee Stout. Prior to this, he worked with Muse on the Drones 360 World Tour, on which he directed video content and interactive elements of the tour. He also worked with Muse later, between the 2016 Drones Festivals Tour, the Summer Amphitheatre Tour|2017 Amphitheatre Tour and the 2018 Summer Festivals Tour, where he took over the role of the production designer. Throughout Simulation Theory's writing process, Bellamy kept Stout up to date with ideas and his fascination with metamodernism. These conversations with Matt led him to work on getting the looks right on the album packaging, the album's promo photography and later becoming the creative director for the tour. Stout said, that various references to 80s and 90s pop culture made appearances throughout the show (hints such as Gremlins, E.T., Terminator, Aliens, Back to the Future etc.).

Stage Design

Arena, Stadium & Festival/Regular Stage Setups

The stage design is similar to The Unsustainable Tour with a long catwalk, a big B-Stage and a big LED screen - but it still includes unique elements.

The main stage is designed to look like three basic diamond squares, blending into each other. The stage then includes three more diamonds, which are smaller and are risen above the main stage. The center diamond acts as a drum riser, while the side diamonds act as tech bunkers, as well as platforms, on which you can access the final seventh and eighth diamonds, one on each side of the main stage, which are risen up even more, and are bigger in diameter, representing stage wings. A large B-stage, also in the shape of a diamond, is connected to the main stage via a long catwalk. The outer edges of the entire stage, including the B-stage, are all lit up with thin solid light strips.

A big LED screen was present behind the stage, with the sides of it being slightly bent outwards, while above the stage, is where lighting trussing is. The whole trussing is designed to look vaguely similar, in overall shape, to the space ship, featured on the Simulation Theory album cover art. Like the stage, the trussing is also lit up with light strips around the edges, which emphasize the shape of the space ship when it's dark and all lit up.

For the stadium gigs the set up was tweaked sightly. The catwalk and the LED screen were more than doubled in size, as well as a large centralized LED speaker tower being added. In addition, extra lasers and floodlights were added around the stadium.

The tour also took place on a few more regular stages, on the Werchter Festival, the IndyCar Classic Festival, the Singapore F1 gig and the South American gigs. For these shows, the basis of the stage design was kept the same as with the regular tour shows, however, the band used regular stage risers instead of the diamond-shaped podiums of the stage construction, with no additional lighting on the edge or the risers. A B-Stage with the catwalk was however present on all gigs, exception being the IndyCar Classic gig, where it was limited to not having the riser, thus forcing the band to modify the setlist a little bit (e.g. the show starting with Pressure as Matt wasn't able to rise from underneath the B-Stage). The above-stage spaceship trussing was also present on all gigs, only being abscent on the [Rio de Janeiro Parque Olímpico Cidade do Rock 2019 (gig)|Rock in Rio]] show.

Murph the Skeleton Robot

Murph

According to Stout, "Murph" was the center piece of the show. He is based on the "Creator", AKA the large extraterrestrial skeleton from The Dark Side music video. The nickname "Murph" is a homage to Murphy from RoboCop, as it bears similarities with it.

Throughout the entire show, the viewer can see Murph originating as one of the performers, which is injected with a flesh-eating pathogen and enchanced with robotic prosthetics, outfitted with a VR mask. He is then confined into a glass prison cell, which he escapes and later manifests physically into the venue - as an inflatable puppet. Stout wanted the puppet to appear, in the context of the show, as a video game end boss that the band defeats at the end of Metal Medley and rejoices with the final song, Knights of Cydonia.

Murph also appeared in the first teaser video for the tour on the band's Instagram. According to Howard, they initially didn't want to unveil Murph and wanted to surprise fans on the first show, but once they got it going at rehearsals, they couldn't resist posting content with it on their Instagram.

The Power Glove

Featured at the beginning of the show, The Power Glove is a sci-fi glove, vaguely similar in looks to the Infinity Glove from Marvel's "The Avengers".

Not much has been said about it from official sources, allthough, as the name suggests, in the context of the tour story, the glove gave Matt the power to enter the simulation and defeat Murph. The glove is made out of shiny metallic plastic, and was also used as a laser reflector as Bellamy rose up from the B-stage at the beginning of the show. It also had some LED lights installed. The glove appeared during Algorithm, both its AR and its regular version.

A Bellamy song, titled, Behold, The Glove and it's music video, also feature The Power Glove.

Dancers

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The dancers

During 2018 interviews, Bellamy has been heavily mentioning wanting to include more performers & dancers during the shows, inspired by David Byrne's shows, which also include choreographed performances. He also mentioned once the shows being Beyonce-esque.

Subsequently, a group of 14 (or more, for stadium shows) dancers were featured on the tour, performing during certain songs in the show (Algorithm - including the AR version, Drill Sergeant, Pressure, Propaganda, Break it to Me, Thought Contagion, Dig Down Acoustic and Starlight) and accompanying the band. During certain songs, the performers were also in charge of lighting elements (spotlights during Break it to Me) and special effects (handheld CO2 cannons during Propaganda).

The dancers became to be known as "Muse Dancers" through the fanbase. More can be read on this page.

Hullabaloon Posters

Despite Hullabaloons being a live staple for Muse ever since 2001, this was the first tour to include limited-edition handprinted signed tour posters inside some of them, on each gig. The poster art was designed by James White (Signalnoise), working with Tim Doyle (Nakatomi Inc.). More on the posters can be read about on White's official webpage here.

Enhanced Experience Package

The three VR games contained in the Enchanced Experience package

The tour's Enhanced Experience Package contained access to the "Mixed Reality Pre-Show Party", which included photo opportunities with various props from the Simulation Theory music videos, a bar service, and a station, with a series of VR-based arcade machine games. The Enchanced Experience Package has been made in cooperation with Microsoft, who also developed the arcade games.

The following VR games were included:

• Simulation Striker - A motion controller based game - player enters a hallway (seen in Break It To Me video), a portal (seen in the Algorithm video) opens up infront of the player and various shapes fly out of it. The player has to punch them out in order to survive. The game is soundtracked by Algorithm.

• Retrograde Racer - A racing based game - player races through a futuristic world filled with neon tunnels and a desert wasteland (based on the one in The Dark Side/Something Human videos). The player must dodge skeletons and various road blocks. The game is soundtracked by The Dark Side.

• Spaceship Defender - Another motion controller based game - player has to pilot a spaceship whilst being attacked by critters (seen in Pressure music video). The game is soundtracked by Pressure.

Simulation Theory Film

The two London O2 shows in September were both filmed for film release. Bellamy hinted at filming the two shows in Summer of 2019 and started teasing the film's content in late Spring of 2020. The movie, which is a mix of film shots and live footage, was released in August of 2020, in cinemas and on digital platforms.

More on the film here.

Average Setlist

• Algorithm (Alternate Reality Version) (shortened)
• Pressure
• [Drill Sergeant] + Psycho
• Break It to Me
• Uprising (extended intro and outro)
• Propaganda
• Plug in Baby (extended outro)
• Pray (shortened and played on tape)
• The Dark Side
• Close Encounters intro (guitar + synth) + Supermassive Black Hole
• Thought Contagion
• Interlude + Hysteria + Back in Black outro
• Unsustainable
• Dig Down (Acoustic Gospel Version)
• STT Interstitial 1
• Madness
• Mercy
• Time is Running Out
• Houston Jam
• Take a Bow
• Prelude + Starlight

Encore 1

• STT Interstitial 2
• Algorithm

Metal medley

• STT Interstitial 3
• Guitar Noise

• Stockholm Syndrome (shortened)
• Assassin (intro)
• Reapers (shortened)
• The Handler (shortened)
• New Born (shortened) + riff outro

Encore 2

• Man With a Harmonica + Knights of Cydonia

Exceptions

• My Own Summer (Shove It) riff was played before the Headup riff at the Sacramento gig
• Enter Sandman riff was added before the Headup riff at the Oakland gig
• Wilma's Rainbow and Negative Creep riffs were played before the Headup riff at the Boston gig
• Undisclosed Desires was played at some outdoor shows after Dig Down.
• Bliss was added to some outdoor sets after Hysteria as of the London Stadium tour debut.
• The Void was played after Dig Down at both nights of The O2 Arena (14th and 15th September), after being first played on 12th September in Amsterdam, altogether having three appearances so far.
• Showbiz was played instead of Bliss after Hysteria at the second Foro Sol night in Mexico City on 3rd October after the band promised to play it. It was also played at a gig in São Paulo, likely to make up for not being able to play it at Rock In Rio, and the Buenos Aires gig, after a vote was held between Bliss and Showbiz.
• Metal medley was cut at the Austin gig due to stage size/setup and the Buenos Aires gig due to bad weather.
• Two shortened setlists of 1h20/1h25 occured, on 23rd March and 21st September. A third shortened of 3 songs (Break It To Me, Houston Jam and Take A Bow) setlist occured at Rock In Rio, due to time limitation.

Gigs

Date	Venue	Location
2019-10-15	Hipódromo de Monterrico	Lima, Peru
2019-10-13	Pista Atlética	Santiago, Chile
2019-10-11	Hipódromo de Palermo	Buenos Aires, Argentina
2019-10-09	Ginásio do Ibirapuera	Sao Paulo, Brazil
2019-10-06	Parque Olímpico Cidade do Rock (Rock in Rio)	Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
2019-10-03	Foro Sol	Mexico City, Mexico
2019-10-02	Foro Sol	Mexico City, Mexico
2019-09-21	Marina Bay Street Circuit (Formula 1 Grand Prix)	Singapore, Singapore
2019-09-17	Arena Birmingham	Birmingham, UK
2019-09-15	The O2 Arena	London, UK
2019-09-14	The O2 Arena	London, UK
2019-09-12	Ziggo Dome	Amsterdam, Netherlands
2019-09-10	Mercedes-Benz Arena	Berlin, Germany
2019-09-08	Royal Arena	Copenhagen, Denmark
2019-09-07	Telenor Arena	Oslo, Norway
2019-07-26	Wanda Metropolitano	Madrid, Spain
2019-07-24	Passeio Maritimo de Alges	Lisbon, Portugal
2019-07-20	Stadio Olimpico	Rome, Italy
2019-07-16	Matmut Atlantique	Bordeaux, France
2019-07-13	San Siro Stadium	Milan, Italy
2019-07-12	San Siro Stadium	Milan, Italy
2019-07-09	Stade Orange Velodrome	Marseille, France
2019-07-06	Stade de France	Paris, France
2019-07-05	Stade de France	Paris, France
2019-07-03	Hallenstadion	Zurich, Switzerland
2019-06-30	Festivalpark Werchter (Rock Werchter Festival)	Werchter, Belgium
2019-06-29	RheinEnergieStadion	Cologne, Germany
2019-06-27	Goffertpark	Nijmegen, Netherlands
2019-06-22	Tauron Arena	Krakow, Poland
2019-06-18	Suvilahti Open Air	Helsinki, Finland
2019-06-15	Luzhniki Stadium	Moscow, Russia
2019-06-12	Arena Riga	Riga, Latvia
2019-06-08	Etihad Stadium	Manchester, England
2019-06-05	Ashton Gate Stadium	Bristol, England
2019-06-01	London Stadium	London, England
2019-05-29	Stadthalle Graz	Graz, Austria
2019-05-28	Papp László Sports Arena	Budapest, Hungary
2019-05-26	Letňany Airport	Prague, Czech Republic
2019-04-12	United Center	Chicago, IL, USA
2019-04-10	TD Garden	Boston, MA, USA
2019-04-08	Madison Square Garden	New York City, NY, USA
2019-04-07	Wells Fargo Center	Philadelphia, PA, USA
2019-04-04	Little Caesars Arena	Detroit, MI, USA
2019-04-02	Capital One Arena	Washington, DC, USA
2019-03-31	Videotron Centre	Québec City, Canada
2019-03-30	Centre Bell	Montreal, Canada
2019-03-28	Scotiabank Arena	Toronto, Canada
2019-03-26	State Farm Arena	Atlanta, GA, USA
2019-03-24	BB&T Center	Sunrise, FL, USA
2019-03-23	Austin360 Amphitheater (IndyCar Classic)	Austin, TX, USA
2019-03-11	The Forum	Los Angeles, CA, USA
2019-03-09	Oracle Arena	Oakland, CA, USA
2019-03-07	Golden 1 Center	Sacramento, CA, USA
2019-03-05	Valley View Casino Center	San Diego, CA, USA
2019-03-02	Mandalay Bay Events Center	Las Vegas, CA, USA
2019-02-28	Vivint Smart Home Arena	Salt Lake City, UT, USA
2019-02-26	Talking Stick Resort Arena	Phoenix, AZ, USA
2019-02-24	American Airlines Center	Dallas, TX, USA
2019-02-22	Toyota Center	Houston, TX, USA

See Also

• Article on Simulation Theory World Tour by PLSN (Projection Lights & Staging News) Magazine

• Article on Simulation Theory World Tour by FOH Online

• Article on Simulation Theory World Tour by TPi Magazine

• Interview with Sooner Routhier of SRae Productions, the tour's lighting designer by Robe

• Disguise providing video conent support for the tour

References

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