London Shepherds Bush Empire 2017 (gig)

Official poster of the gig

Queue at Shepherds Bush

Muse at Shepherds Bush

Muse at Shepherds Bush

Muse show
Venue	Shepherds Bush Empire (The Passage Benefit By Request Show)
Date	19th August 2017
Location	London
Country	United Kingdom
Songs	17
Support	None
Start (GMT)	20.00
Capacity	2.000
Price (GBP)	78.25 - 258.50
Sold out?	Yes

Gig nav
Osheaga Festival	←	Shepherds Bush Empire	→	Belfast Vital

A benefit show, happening outside of the North American Summer Amphitheatre Tour. It's also Muse's first intimate by-request show.

Information

Confirmed by the band on Annie Mac's show on BBC Radio 1 on July 3rd, 2017, Muse played an intimate gig at Shepherds Bush Empire. The show was in aid of The Passage, London’s largest voluntary sector resource centre for homeless and vulnerable people. The last time Muse played on this venue was in 2013.

The show was by request, ticket holders were able to choose their top ten tracks and all votes submitted were be collated and used to make the setlist for the night.

Presale for fan club was available on July 5th at 9AM and general sale on July 7th also at 9AM.

The Show

• Easily was played live for the first time ever. Matt commented that he loved the track, and said that it only missed out being on Black Holes and Revelations due to being written too late.
• Glorious was played for the first time since 2005. Dom introduced the track by saying that the song was one of his favourites and that he'd been trying to get Matt to play it "for 7 years".
• Showbiz was played for the first time since 2006. Matt stated that the track won the voting "by a mile" and that it "might be back", implying it could be played at later shows - which turned out to be true.
• Sing for Absolution was played for the first time since 2007. Matt commented that he was surprised that the song made the top 10.
• Dead Star and New Born were played for the first time since 2015, the latter of which was played notably faster than usual.
• Yes Please was an abbreviated version - first verse and chorus only.
• Assassin opened a show for the first time since 2007.
• The performance of Munich Jam had the fastest ending up to this day.
• Muscle Museum, Showbiz, Fury, Sing for Absolution, and Futurism were all played half a step down.
• No songs were played that were released after 2006.
• Last performances of Easily, Glorious, Sing for Absolution, Futurism, and the full version of Dead Star to date.

Media

The gig's gallery was uploaded to muse.mu and can be seen here.

Glorious and Showbiz (audio only) were released as the 2017 muse.mu Christmas present, while Easily (audio only) was released as the 2018 muse.mu Christmas present.

You can also watch a fan-recorded multicam of the full gig here.

Setlist

1. Assassin (extended)
   ^{(Manson Matt Black 2.0, aqua blue finish blue-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass 5-string)}
2. Dead Star
   ^{(Manson Matt Black 2.0, woven chrome finish tricolor-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
3. Muscle Museum
   ^{(Manson Holoflake, graphite finish blue-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
4. Easily
   ^{(Manson Matt Black 2.0, aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
5. Glorious
   ^{(Manson Matt Black 2.0, aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
6. Glastonbury Riff + Butterflies & Hurricanes
   ^{(Manson Matt Black 2.0, aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
7. Citizen Erased
   ^{(Manson E7, aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
8. Munich Jam (fast ending)
   ^{(aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
9. Showbiz + Ashamed outro
   ^{(Manson Holoflake, graphite finish blue-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
10. Fury
    ^{(Manson Holoflake, graphite finish blue-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
11. Interlude + Hysteria + Back in Black outro
    ^{(Manson Chrome FR, aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
12. New Born + Micro Cuts outro + Agitated intro + Agitated outro
    ^{(Manson M1D1 Stealth, woven chrome finish tricolor-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
13. Yes Please + Reapers outro + Freedom outro
    ^{(Manson M1D1 Stealth, woven chrome finish tricolor-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}

    Encore 1

14. Sing for Absolution
    ^{(Manson Holoflake, graphite finish blue-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
15. Plug in Baby (extended)
    ^{(Manson Mirror 2.0, aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}

    Encore 2

16. Too Many Puppies riff + Futurism
    ^{(Manson Holoflake, graphite finish blue-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}
17. Man With a Harmonica + Knights of Cydonia
    ^{(Manson Chrome FR, aqua blue finish white-LED Status Chris Wolstenholme Signature Bass)}

There was no printed paper set-lists available. Rumor has it that this was intentional to surprise the attendees and to avoid the setlist being potentially leaked beforehand. Therefore, it is not known if Muse had Yes Please as a separate song entry on the setlist or if it was played spontaneously as part of New Born's outro.

Voting

Since the show is by request, ticket holders were able to vote for what songs will be on the setlist. Since the announcements, multple Reddit threads and Facebook groups were made to help choose which songs. A well-informed and constructed thread was made on Reddit about how to vote carefully for rare songs.

On July 11th, 2017, ticket holders received emails about the gig and its vote. Each ticket holder received a link to Set the Set, a website where you can vote for songs for the setlist, and a unique code to validate your choices. You could vote for songs in a pre-determined list of 62 songs on the website, at first. Some songs were surprisingly omitted from this list, like Uno, Blackout or Apocalypse Please, which were played recently in 2015-2016. This was due to an error by Set The Set when uploading full list of available songs . This error also caused a side-effect where it would automatically add New Kind Of Kick to your vote list when you would pick Easily. This was fixed the next day, on July 12th. After fixing and adding the missing songs, the list had 83 songs up for voting.

Some songs that were never played live or haven't been played for more than 10 years, were on this list aswell, like Invincible, Showbiz, Do We Need This, Nature_1, Map of Your Head, Easily, Glorious and Eternally Missed.

Song Choices

Bold are songs that were never played live. Italic are songs that haven't been played since 2012. Both bold and italic are songs that haven't been played since 2006.

• Uprising
• Psycho
• Supermassive Black Hole
• Starlight
• Feeling Good
• Madness
• Knights Of Cydonia
• Hysteria
• Time Is Running Out
• Dead Inside
• Mercy
• Plug In Baby
• Dig Down
• New Kind of Kick
• Undisclosed Desires
• Reapers
• Panic Station
• Supremacy
• The Handler
• Resistance
• Stockholm Syndrome
• New Born
• Map Of The Problematique
• Defector
• Survival
• Revolt
• Follow Me
• Bliss
• Butterflies and Hurricanes
• Muscle Museum
• Aftermath
• Animals
• Assassin
• Invincible
• Sing For Absolution
• The 2nd Law: Isolated System
• Citizen Erased
• Unintended
• The Globalist
• Sunburn
• Unnatural Selection
• Take a Bow
• Guiding Light
• The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
• United States Of Eurasia
• Exo-Politics
• Hyper Music
• Sign O' The Times
• Fury
• The Groove
• Easily
• Eternally Missed
• Micro Cuts
• Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever)
• Map Of Your Head
• Nature_1
• Yes Please
• Agitated
• Showbiz
• Futurism
• Dead Star
• Do We Need This?
• Falling Down
• Space Dementia
• Cave
• Apocalypse Please
• Screenager
• Falling Away With You
• Uno
• Darkshines
• Megalomania
• The Small Print
• Thoughts Of A Dying Atheist
• Soldier's Poem
• Ruled By Secrecy
• City Of Delusion
• Blackout
• Glorious
• Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)
• Save Me
• Endlessly
• Liquid State
• Forced In

Stats

Bold are songs that were never played live. Italic are songs that haven't been played since 2012. Both bold and italic are songs that haven't been played since 2006.

Album	# of songs	Songs available	Songs excluded
Showbiz	7	Sunburn, Muscle Museum, Falling Down, Cave, Showbiz, Unintended and Uno	Fillip, Sober, Escape, Overdue, Hate This & I'll Love You and Spiral Static
B-sides from Showbiz	4	Agitated, Yes Please, Do We Need This? and Forced In	Jimmy Kane, Pink Ego Box, Twin, Host, Coma, Con-Science, Minimum, Ashamed, Recess and Nishe
Origin of Symmetry	12	New Born, Bliss, Space Dementia, Hyper Music, Plug in Baby, Citizen Erased, Micro Cuts, Screenager, Darkshines, Feeling Good, Futurism and Megalomania	--
B-sides from Origin of Symmetry	2	Nature_1 and Map of Your Head	Execution Commentary, Bedroom Acoustics, Shrinking Universe, Piano Thing, The Gallery, Hyper Chondriac Music, Shine and Please Please Please, Let Me Get What I Want
Hullabaloo	1	Dead Star	In Your World and Can't Take My Eyes Off You
Absolution	13	Apocalypse Please, Time Is Running Out, Sing for Absolution, Stockholm Syndrome, Falling Away With You, Interlude + Hysteria, Blackout, Butterflies & Hurricanes, Fury, The Small Print, Endlessly, Thoughts of a Dying Atheist and Ruled by Secrecy	--
B-sides from Absolution	2	The Groove and Eternally Missed	--
Black Holes and Revelations	11	Take a Bow, Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole, Map of the Problematique, Soldier's Poem, Invincible, Assassin, Exo-Politics, City of Delusion, Knights of Cydonia and Glorious	Hoodoo
B-sides from Black Holes and Revelations	1	Easily	Crying Shame
The Resistance	7	Uprising, Resistance, Undisclosed Desires, United States of Eurasia, Guiding Light, Unnatural Selection and Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)	MK Ultra, I Belong to You, Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination) and Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)
B-sides from The Resistance	0	--	Who Knows Who, Popcorn, Prague
The 2nd Law	10	Supremacy, Madness, Panic Station, Survival, Follow Me, Animals, Save Me, Liquid State, Unsustainable and Isolated System	Prelude, Explorers, Big Freeze
Drones	9	Dead Inside, Drill Sergeant + Psycho, Mercy, Reapers, The Handler, JFK + Defector, Revolt, Aftermath, The Globalist	--
Other songs	4	Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever), Sign o' the Times, New Kind of Kick, Dig Down	Man of Mystery, America, Back in Black, Lithium, Lies

Voting Results

On Sunday, Aug 20, 2017, Matt tweeted out the results of the voting:

Number	Song	# of Votes	% of Votes
1	Showbiz	683	47.1
2	Muscle Museum	629	43.38
3	Assassin	437	30.14
4	Fury	433	29.86
5	Dead Star	413	28.48
6	Citizen Erased	400	27.59
7	Easily	391	26.97
8	Sing for Absolution	373	25.72
9	Glorious	357	24.62
10	Butterflies & Hurricanes	356	24.55

While Matt did not reveal the voting results for outside of TOP10, after Futurism was played, he did say that the song "came number 12th". Additionally Matt implied that Eternally Missed came 11th place when replying to a tweet asking about it.

Rehearsals and soundchecks

On August 1st, 2017, at Burgettstown KeyBank Pavilion, Muse sound-checked Fury, Showbiz and Assassin before the gig according to Dominic Howard on an interview by iHeart Radio, that was posted the very next day. A video of Fury sound-check was posted on Muse's Instagram. While there was and still is no proof, Dead Star and Glorious were allegedly sound-checked as well, but since all sound-checked songs ended up being played at this gig, it is likely that this sound-check information was true. None of the sound-checked songs were played later at that gig.

On Aug 18, 2017, Muse posted pictures and video of their practice sessions for Shepherds Bush Empire gig on Instagram Stories. Included in one of the images was a blurry setlist. The Italian Musers Do It Better Facebook Page group Photoshopped the blurry image to come up with some of the songs they believed would be played. All of them were part of the setlist.

Muscle Museum
Easily
Butterflies
Glorious
Dead Star
Showbiz (Half Step Down)
Futurism (Half Step Down)
Fury (Half Step Down)
Interlude Hysteria

On Aug 19, 2017, before the gig, Muse sound-checked Easily, Glorious, Assassin and New Born.

Speech

When	Who	What
Before Assassin	Bellamy	"Yes, London! Welcome to an evening of deep cuts."
After Dead Star		"Yes, thank you!"
Before Muscle Museum		"Thank you very much, thank you. This next song is 2nd oldest song we are playing tonight."
Before Easily		"This next song actually we have never played live before and we actually never played it together as a band. Because when we recorded it, it was bass and drums first, and then I did the vocals and the guitar a bit later. So this is the first time we have ever played together. Of course we rehearsed it, fucked it up a few times, but, yeah, let's see where we go. It's also one of my favorite songs!"
After Easily		"Yes! I don't know how it didn't get to the album, I don't know how that didn't make it to the album. I think, was that just after Black Holes or was it Absolution? Can't remember. When did we do this song? I can't remember. I think we did it on the road, on the road somewhere. I know it was, Black Holes just had come out and we were a bit late to get it on the album. Anyway, love that song."
Before Glorious	Howard	"How's it going, Shepherd's Bush? It's a real pleasure to come and play for you guys tonight in this awesome venue again, I guess we played in this venue four years ago, it was so good we had to come back. As you probably know all the proceeds for tonight are going to the charity The Passage which is amazing charity doing wonderful job, helping homeless people in London and keeping them sheltered, finding food and stuff like that. So yeah, everything is going to them tonight, so thank you for coming! We gonna play one of mine favorite songs we have been trying to get Matt play for about seven years or so. We are gonna give it a shot, see what happens."
After Glorious	Bellamy	"Thank you very much. Cheers!"
After Butterflies & Hurricanes		"Thank you very much, thank you!"
Before Citizen Erased		"Live on Instagram, it's currently live!" "So we bet with our manager a thousand bucks we knew that you would pick this song, okay? So he is doing a grand for the charity."
Before Showbiz		"So this song won by a mile on the voting. Okay, okay we are gonna play it. Last gig was I think, I think was, what, 2006 or something? I think it was 2006."
After Showbiz		"Oh man! It's a killer, it's a killer! That song might be back, it might be back now."
After Hysteria		"Thank you!"
Before Sing For Absolution		"This next song was a big surprise for me that it made the TOP 10. Here we go."
During Sing For Absolution		"Oh sorry, sorry. It's 'There's nowhere left to hide'!"
Before Plug In Baby		"Thank you very much, thank you! So this next song is actually the oldest song we are playing tonight, it's actually from our 2nd album, people don't realize we actually wrote this when I was about 18, 19, the verse and chorus, but then the riff came later."
During Plug In Baby		"Sing it, Bush!"
After Futurism		"That came number 12th."
During Knights of Cydonia		"Come on, London!"
End of Knights of Cydonia		"Thank you very much, thank you!"
After Knights of Cydonia		"Thank you everyone, we love you so much, we are so happy to be back here. You guys are fucking awesome! Thanks for coming to see us, thanks for raising money for The Passage. See some of you at Reading and Leeds."
After Knights of Cydonia	Howard	"Thanks so much Shepherd's Bush. That was a lot of fun, thanks for coming, I am sure we are gonna do it again. Cheers. Good to see you guys. Take care."

Gallery

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Rehearsals gallery

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  "Rehearsals"

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  "Some old ones & some new ones"

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  "This one makes Morgan's hand hurt!"

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  "Dom likes this one!!"

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  "Haven't played this one for a while!"

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References

Go back to the gig archive