The Resistance Tour

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The Resistance Tour was a worldwide tour that took place between October 2009 and August 2011 in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia in support of the album The Resistance. It took place in both indoor arenas, aswell as stadiums and festivals.

Information

The tour spanned from 2009 up until 2011, with the majority of gigs happening in 2010. Special gigs, such as supporting U2 on the 360 tour, and festival shows, were sandwiched in-between the headlining gigs. The indoor production travelled across Europe, United States and Australia, while the outdoor stadium production, which took place in the summer of 2010, toured across Europe only.

Warm-up gigs & U2 360° Tour (Leg 1)

The tour began with a series of warm up gigs. The first two notable homecoming concerts, called "A Seaside Rendezvous", took place in Muse's childhood town, Teignmouth, on 4th and 5th of September, 2009. These were the band's first performances in the town, in ten years. Following the homecoming gigs were three intimate shows, in Berlin's Admiralspalast, Paris's Théâtre du Châtelet and New York City's Walter Kerr Theatre - the latter of which was filmed for MTV World Stage. All three gigs took place in September, right after the Teignmouth shows.

Following the warm up shows and a series of promotional TV performances came the infamous U2 360° Tour, during which Muse supported U2. First half of Muse's support gigs took place in autumn of 2009 in the U.S., with the last half of support gigs taking place in early 2011, straight after the indoor leg of the main tour, in South America.

Europe - Indoor shows (Leg 1)

After finishing the first series of U2 360° Tour support gigs, Muse began with the main headlining tour in late October of 2009. The first leg of indoor concerts began with the performance at Helsinki's Hartwall Areena on October 22nd, and ended with a gig at Turin's Palasport Olimpico on December 4th, 2009.

U.S. Christmas festivals & Australasia

After finishing the European leg, the band went on to perform a run of holiday gigs in the States, making stops at festivals such as Oakland's Oracle Arena for Live 105's Not So Silent Night, Los Angeles's Gibson Amphitheatre for KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas. Right after the Christmas holidays, they headed out to Japan in January of 2010, to perform gigs at Seoul's Olympic Park, Osaka's jō Hall, Nagoya's Aichi Taiiku-Kan and Tokyo's Nippon Budōkan.

Between January and the beginning of February, 2010, the band travelled to Australia to perform at a series of Big Day Out festivals across the country. The gigs took place at several cities in Australia, including Auckland, Sydney and Perth. After the Australian, Muse made two more stops in Asia, in Singapore and Hong Kong.

North America - Indoor shows (Leg 1)

On February 27th, 2010, Muse returned to the U.S., starting with the gig at Atlanta's Gwinett Arena. The U.S./Mexican run, which also included performances at a few festivals like Coachella and South By Southwest, ended with the only Mexican show of the tour, at Mexico City's Foro Sol.

Europe - Outdoor shows & festivals

Following the U.S. indoor leg and another competition winner exclusive intimate gig at Casino de Paris, the band went on to perform bigger shows, at both stadiums and festivals across Europe, throughout the summer of 2010. Muse made appearances on festivals like Lisbon's Rock in Rio, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, and Glastonbury, which featured Muse collaborating with U2 guitarist The Edge, performing the cover of "Where The Streets Have No Name". The band, amongst other stadiums, also played two dates at Stade de France in Paris, on 11th and 12th of June, aswell as two dates at London's Wembley Stadium, on 10th and 11th of September.

Between the summer leg in Europe, the band also made two stops in Asia, at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan and Jisan Valley Rock Festival in South Korea.

North America - Indoor shows (Leg 2)

In autumn of 2010, Muse returned for the second leg of indoor gigs in the States. The run also included two festival performances; Austin City Limits and Voodoo Experience. The leg started with the show in San Diego on September 22nd, and ended with the previously mentioned Voodoo Experience show on October 29th. During the tour, the band also made a stop in Canada, in Québec City.

The leg's final two shows in Kansas and St. Louis had to be cancelled due to the birth of Wolstenholme's child.

Australia - Indoor shows

December of 2010 saw Muse back in Australia, this time with a series of indoor shows. The band performed two nights in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, and one night in Perth.

The snow storm in the U.K. and the subsequent flight cancellations at the time prevented Wolstenholme from going back home from Australia to his then-home in Ireland, in order to visit their family in time for the holidays. With U2 also on their way home from their separate tour in Australia, they took Chris on-board their private jet to Ireland.[1]

U2 360° Tour (Leg 2)

Muse took some time off in the beginning of 2011, only performing at the 53rd Grammy Awards ceremony in February. In March, the band went on for their second run of six gigs, supporting U2 on the 360 Tour in South America, featuring three nights in Santiago, Chile, and three nights in São Paulo, Brazil.

Eastern Europe, U.S. festivals & Origin of Symmetry 10th anniversary

2011 was, in terms of touring, pretty tame. In May of 2011, Muse played three shows in Russia and Ukraine; In Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Kyiv. A few months later, Muse went on a shorter U.S. festival tour, which included gigs at L.A. Rising, on which Muse supported Rage Against the Machine, Lollapalooza Chicago, Kansrocksas and Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival. Between the festivals, the band made a stop at Noblesville, Indianapolis, to perform a standalone gig.

The Resistance Tour ended with two one-off gigs at Readin and Leeds festivals. The special gigs commemorated the 10th anniversary of Origin of Symmetry, the sets of which featured Muse playing the album in-full, followed by an encore/shortened version of the standard festival setlist.

Stage Set-Up

Indoor setup

File:ResistanceArena StageDesign.jpg
Indoor setup

The towers. Three towers.

With the album itself heavily inspired by George Orwell's book, 1984, the stage design was no different. The towers were a re-imagination of the concept buildings as structures of the three ministries from the book.[2] Designed by Matt and Es Devlin of Brilliant Stages, overlooked by production manager Chris Vaughan, the tour featured a circular stage with elevated tech bunkers on each side, with the cuboid towers, one for each member of the band.

Each of the towers consisted of a static uppper portion, which was hung from trussing above the band, and a lower portion, which was able to rise and lower with the help of hydraulic lifts. The central tower also had a rotating drum riser. The towers were outfitted with LED screens on all sides, displaying visual content.

Stadium setup

File:ResistanceStadium StageDesign.jpg
Stadium setup

Like the indoor setup, the outdoor setup drew major influences from Orwell's 1984. Loosely based on the Senate House building from the book, it features a distinct pyramid/diamond shape. Upon seeing the initial drawings, Brilliant Stages's technical designer Malcolm Birkett thought about it not looking anything like a stage.[3]

The stage was first put together during production rehearsals at The National Bowl in Milton Keynes. The diamond stage itself is flanked in LED and projection screens and includes a ceiling grid below the video header, with cut-out cells for lights. Above the stage sat a ball made out of LED screens. The entire stage acted as a projection screen at certain parts of the show, as it projected visuals across the entire stage during certain parts of the set. The projections were mapped by Easyweb.[4] Due to the stage's odd design, several lifts were used for easier on and off-loading of the gear onto the stage itself. Underneath, the design took some inspiration from Take That's Circus Live Tour, having passages for all the crew working underneath the stage. The stage also included a B-stage, which was placed on a tracked scissor lift. The scossor lift itself is also salvaged from the Cirucs Live Tour.[5]

The shows also included light-up hullabaloons placed on stadium stands behind the stage.

Festivals setup

The festival setup was rather simple compared to the indoor and outdoor setups. It featured a fairly high aluminium drum riser, with the center point being a hexagon LED-screen panel grid hung behind the band, mimicking the hexagon shapes from The Resistance's album cover.

An additional simpler setup was used for some festival gigs, including three LED screens behind the band, each of them displaying the visuals which would've been displayed on the towers from the indoor production.

For the Origin of Symmetry 10th anniversary gigs, the band ditched the hexagon panel, replacing it instead with a large LED screen, together with a few of the antenna structures from the album cover sitting behind the band.

Typical setlist

Indoor shows

+  Uprising
Encore 1

Variation

  • Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture) was used as the opener on the second night of the tour at Stockholm. It is suspected that this was due to a technical issue with the towers. It would be used as an opener a few more times in the tour, mostly towards the end.
  • The other two movements of Exogenesis were never played during the tour. Part 3 (Redemption) would be played once during the following tour, leaving Part 2 (Cross-Pollination) as one of the few studio tracks to never be played live, a title previously held only by Falling Away With You.
  • Unintended was occasionally played before Helsinki Jam.
  • During the Amnéville-les-Thermes gig, Nishe was played before United States of Eurasia. It would remain for the vast majority of the tour.
  • On rare occasions, Unnatural Selection replaced Map of the Problematique, Stockholm Syndrome closed the main set and Plug in Baby was played after Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture).
  • MK Ultra made it's live debut at Birmingham. It would make regular appearances throughout the rest of the tour, replacing, or being played in addition to, Guiding Light.
  • Butterflies & Hurricanes was played at the Turin gig after Hysteria, as was Sunburn which replaced Cave / Feeling Good. Both would make rare appearances throughout the remainder of the Resistance tour.

North America - Leg 1

There were very few changes on this leg of the tour. However;

Asia

A string of gigs were performed in South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong in early 2010. Despite a few minor mutations in the placement of certain songs in the set, the performances were similar to those of the European leg. However there were some (notable) exceptions.

  • Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture) was not played in Seoul.
  • Bliss was played for the first time on the tour at Osaka, replacing Stockholm Syndrome. It would make rare appearances throughout the rest of the tour.
  • Citizen Erased debuted at the Nagoya gig, also replacing Stockholm Syndrome. Like Bliss, it would show up from time to time.
  • During the Tokyo gig Can't Take My Eyes Off You was played for the first time since 2002. Dead Star also made it's tour debut at this gig with the Micro Cuts ending riff replacing the second half. They replaced MK ULTRA and Stockholm Syndrome.
  • Dead Star was played again at the Hong Kong gig, also with the Micro Cuts riff at the end. This is the last time Dead Star would be seen until The 2nd Law Tour in 2013.

A series of festival dates in Australia and New Zealand took place between the Japan and Singapore gigs. Despite some oddities in the order of the setlist, these were identical to previous gigs, albeit shorter.

Casino de Paris gig

The 2010 Casino de Paris gig marked the debut performances of both I Belong To You and Neutron Star Collision.

Setlist polls were organised by Muse's management on the official Muse website, allowing fans to vote for the top 5 songs they wanted to hear at each gig. Not all of their repertoire was included in this, however. Dead Star, and some other tracks were absent. In many cases only one or two of the top 5 songs were played. In some cases none were played. Due to the popularity of Citizen Erased and Bliss in these polls, they both made very regular appearances throughout the tour.

Stadium shows

  • We Are The Universe (Riot Version)
  • Uprising
  • Supermassive Black Hole
  • New Born
  • Map of the Problematique / MK ULTRA
  • Neutron Star Collision / Butterflies & Hurricanes
  • Guiding Light
  • Interlude + Hysteria
  • Nishe
  • United States Of Eurasia
  • I Belong To You
  • Feeling Good
  • MK Jam + Undisclosed Desires
  • Resistance
  • Starlight
  • Time is Running Out
  • Unnatural Selection
Encore 1
  • Unintended / Soldier's Poem
  • Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)
  • Stockholm Syndrome
Encore 2
  • Take A Bow
  • Plug In Baby
  • Knights of Cydonia

Variation

Festival shows

Stats

Album # of songs Songs played
Showbiz 3 Sunburn, Cave, Unintended
Origin of Symmetry 6 New Born, Bliss, Plug in Baby, Citizen Erased, Feeling Good, Megalomania
Absolution 6 Time Is Running Out, Stockholm Syndrome, Interlude, Hysteria, Butterflies and Hurricanes, Ruled By Secrecy
Black Holes and Revelations 6 Take a Bow, Starlight, Supermassive Black Hole, Map of the Problematique, Soldier's Poem, Knights of Cydonia
The Resistance 9 Uprising, Resistance, Undisclosed Desires, United States of Eurasia, Guiding Light, Unnatural Selection, MK Ultra, I Belong To You, Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)
Other 11 Nishe, Dead Star, Can't Take My Eyes Off You, Popcorn, Neutron Star Collision, Helsinki Jam, Glasgow Jam, MK Jam, America, Back in Black, Where The Streets Have No Name

Gigs

References

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL7Lk6TjuzY&t=307s
  2. ↑ https://www.paddyhocken.com/site/assets/files/1098/tpi_oct_2010_-_issue_134.pdf
  3. ↑ https://www.paddyhocken.com/site/assets/files/1098/tpi_oct_2010_-_issue_134.pdf
  4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJRhKVslovk
  5. ↑ https://www.paddyhocken.com/site/assets/files/1098/tpi_oct_2010_-_issue_134.pdf


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