British rock legends Muse give an electric performance at Hungary’s Volt festival by Zach White
Summer is here, and with festival season in full swing, you might be wondering where the best place is to enjoy some of your favorite live music. Titanic festivals such as Glastonbury and Primavera Sound have world-class lineups, but are pricey and almost impossible to get tickets for.
But dig a little deeper, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
You may or may not be familiar with the titanic Sziget festival held annually in Budapest, a week-long event that in the last years has quickly gained a reputation as one of the best music festivals in Europe. But what if I told you Sziget has a somewhat unknown sister festival: Volt. Nestled on the hilly outskirts of Sopron, a city of 62,000 people situated on the border of Austria and Hungary, Volt’s village-like atmosphere is comparable to that of a small-town U.S. carnival and presents renowned international rock acts as well as many Hungarian artists.
After three years of government restrictions, it’s finally time to open the floodgates on what many are calling “the second summer of love”. And what better band to mark a triumphant return to live music and festivals than legendary alternative rock act Muse? Fresh off their headlining performance at the Isle of Wight festival and on tour supporting their forthcoming album ‘Will Of The People’ which releases later this summer on the 26th of August, the trio kicked off the 2022 edition of the festival, which runs for five days and features appearances from The Killers, Bring Me the Horizon, and Sum 41.
The band, consisting of guitarist and singer Matt Bellamy, drummer Dominic Howard, and bassist Chris Wolstenholme delivered an explosive performance that opened with the raucous new single ‘Will Of The People’, which Bellamy himself describes as “a fictional story set in a fictional metaverse on a fictional planet ruled by a fictional authoritarian state run by a fictional algorithm manifested by a fictional data centre running a fictional bank printing a fictional currency controlling a fictional population occupying a fictional city containing a fictional apartment where a fictional man woke up one day and thought “fuck this””.
After a seemingly endless sunset performance by Hungarian metal rockers Tankcsapda, the band appeared on stage donned with full metal face masks and proceeded to throw them to the ground after the song ended, perhaps a symbolic nod to the closing of the COVID-19 pandemic and the return of live music to the world.
True to Muse’s epic production standards, the show was not short of over-the-top theatrics, with videos of crumbling cities cakes with orange sand being projected on massive screens, a giant rotating metal mask, confetti cannons, and guitarist and singer Matt Bellamy emerging from the shadows halfway through the show with a futuristic led jacket and Iron Man-like glove.
Oh, and how could I forget, a massive wheel of fire with the album’s insignia accompanied by flames shooting 15ft into the air.
The band delivered an explosive 2-hour set that kept everyone on their feet and played hits such as ‘Plug In Baby’, ‘Hysteria’, ‘Psycho’, and ‘Uprising’, as well as obscure instrumental ‘Nishe’; a B side from their first album ‘Showbiz’. One of my favorite things about Muse’s expansive discography which carried itself into the performance was the amount of variety that’s packed into their 8 albums. Whether it’s plucking the riff from Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’, flairs of dubstep in ‘Madness’, dashes of classical piano in between songs, or the heavy metal riff intro of ‘Kill or Be Killed’, the band is always finding a way to keep things interesting and fresh. This being said, they mainly stuck to the hits and didn’t stray off the trail to play fan favorites such as ‘Citizen Erased’ or ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, both of which have been making a long-awaited comeback in the roster for this year’s tour.
Bellamy’s voice and signature falsetto were in top form, and the band’s synchronicity was nothing short of impressive. “You sound fantastic”, Matt exclaimed as the crowd sang the chorus of ‘Madness’ in unison.
As the band closed out with an encore of ‘Starlight’ and ‘Knights of Cydonia’, Matt sang out to the crowd:
“You electrify my life
Let’s conspire to ignite
All the souls that would die just to feel alive”
With a hope-filled line that couldn’t be more powerful in times like these, and a crowd that couldn’t be more alive on a night like this, the night came to a close and the crowd dispersed.
Overall, the atmosphere of the Volt festival is fantastic, staff friendly, and the amenities plentiful. Be sure to check out the wine forest (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like) where you can purchase wine grown by local farmers and relax with friends under the shade of big oak trees. Definitely worth a visit!
The ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ band is slated to perform a string of intimate shows in the US and Europe this fall as well as a Summer festival tour.
Zach White
Headline photo by Zach White
