London Royal Albert Hall 2008 (gig)

The band during Megalomania

Various items

Dominic Howard

Matthew Bellamy

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
Date	12th April 2008
Location	London[source?]
Country	United Kingdom
Songs	16[source?]
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?] [source?]
Sold out?	Yes

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?]

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

From later to earlier

• 23:00 – Curfew
• 21:00 – Muse
• 20:30 – Interval
• 20:00 – Futureheads
• 18:45 - Doors

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

SOUSOUS recorded the concert, four songs of which he shared as a preview. His full recording is available in FLAC format here. It is also available on Muselive here[registration needed] and here[registration needed].

Another recording was made by 'Petrock2000', which is also available in FLAC format, here and in mp3 format here[registration needed].

pmb1202 recorded video of the gig, which can be found on YouTube here. Muxed audio from SOUSOUS' mp3 release and pmb1202's video of Megalomania can be downloaded here[registration needed] and here. Note that as SOUSOUS only released four songs in mp3 format, permission would need to be sought for muxing his FLAC recordings with any video. 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.

Later on in the 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. Follow links made here[registration needed]] to download off torrents.

Audio hashes

• SOUSOUS' recording hash tables »

• Here are hashes of the PCM audio data.

  #	md5
  01	47007c63bbeb08605eb6dc91d933c348
  02	0d7d46963d257d598be0be219b18660a
  03	7af721c0d53300616f4c18ce6c942910
  04	766c5d642f040511888a0c66a9b79488
  05	8fe441a0e6de7b1934ecda57f1c56ed5
  06	1261528300d183161477a6d126771e07
  07	30005ca5e3c61a38b5b680089b2d8e55
  08	48c0b4335526ce4bc345042dfed62b74
  09	458f35d2aedcb6d446204547861bfff9
  10	747e964926414831f51e0c6991d8576f
  11	1b6ead67eea6f5f48fd57ed3891c593d
  12	a52b309a0a79d41406482801c6804edd
  13	7cf4c0ef7d4ec226cb74aef8cf59b9cd
  14	dcdb399ca35f29ce93a8482b44be90a7
  15	fc5323bcba63f6705ddcc85c6f47d130
  16	c87bd2ac49e0ab93aa893fc7e0baf45d

Setlist

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

    Encore

14. Riff + Megalomania [watch]
15. Drum and Bass
16. Plug In Baby
    ^{( Manson Mirror, red Fender Jazz Bass)}
17. Close Encounters riff + Knights of Cydonia

See also

• Royal Albert Hall, London
• Teenage Cancer Trust website

Go back to the gig archive