I was eating an overpriced burger and drinking overpriced water while I Am Arrows were playing, and so am poorly qualified to comment on the quality of their performance.
White Lies showed a surprisingly high level of confidence for such a (relatively) small band on such a big stage. Almost half of the set was comprised of new material; presumably so that it is vaguely present in people's memories when it starts to show up on the radio.
Biffy Clyro were as tight as a miser's purse-strings, and thanks to autumn nights pulling in it was dark enough for their light show to have some real impact.
Muse were preceded by a mob, complete with placards and banners bearing lyric-slogans (viz. "They will not control us") and some general noise (klaxons, alerts &c.) over the PA. They opened with an exciting five-track combo of Uprising, Supermassive Black Hole, MK Ultra, Map of the Problematique, and an extended pogo-fest of much earlier hit, Bliss.
Sixth on the setlist, Guiding Light is a fairly average track; think Queen, or just "Invincible 2" (sequels rarely being better than the original). Clever deployment of huge ribbons of paper and shreds of ticker tape over the front of the crowd really brought it to life on this occasion though.
To make up for that dip, the band crescendoed into Hysteria and a little bit of AC/DC riffage, then Citizen Erased with a great guitar break in the middle. Nishe (an obscure and quiet b-side featuring slow bass riff and gentle drumming) cooled things off pleasantly, but while we were down there we got United States of Eurasia; a poor parody of the band's former bombastic heights.
The set maintained momentum through a combination of classics and using flashy bits of stage-craft during weaker new material. While frontman (Matt Bellamy) was at the piano they played Ruled By Secrecy and Feeling Good, then he dissappeared for a bit allowing drummer (Dominic Howard) and bassist (Chris Wolstenholme) to lay down MK Jam on a spinning podium that travelled out into the audience. Dom used four electric drums that light up on impact for this. Matt rejoined them on the same podium with his keytar for a rendition of Undisclosed Desires. The miniature stage rose up as it headed out into the audience (again) and one look over the side from the iconic frontman drew screams from thousands of throats.
Resistance, Starlight (one of Bellamy's finest vocal performances), and Unnatural Selection rounded off the main set.
The first encore was a potent pairing of Exogenesis (Part 1) - during which a UFO circled the crowd complete with dangling acrobat; unfortunately not as stylish as the heliospheres used in their first Wembley dates a few years ago, but impressive nonetheless - and the fan favourite hostage-situation-love-story Stockholm Syndrome.
Their final encore was about as epic as you'd have every right to expect, and we saw Matt return to the stage in a suit with a coating of red synchronized LEDs, which complemented the arpeggiated synth intro of Take A Bow. With an unusally small amount of fuzz factory generated white noise the trio launched into Plug in Baby (cue giant balloon eyeballs for the crowd to bounce back and forth before eventually popping in explosions of yet more ticker tape). Over two hours after it started, the spectacle rounded off with Knights of Cydonia, a finale made yet more grand (and Western) by the inclusion of their cover of Ennio Morricone's Man with a Harmonica.
I sat on the underground train back to my apartment, mind and body a complete wreck, and reflected on what a great show it was. I'd had my money's worth by the end of Biffy Clyro's set; Muse was a generous amount of icing on an already ample cake.
