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The 2nd Law World Tour was a worldwide concert tour by English alternative rock band Muse. It was the band's eighth concert tour, which supported their sixth studio album The 2nd Law.[1][2] Muse announced the tour via their official website and Twitter account on 7 June 2012.[3] The European summer stadium tour was called The Unsustainable Tour, and saw the band's biggest stadium tour to date.
A live album and video of the tour, Live at Rome Olympic Stadium, was released in cinemas and on CD, DVD and Blu-Ray in November 2013. The release featured their performance at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome in July 2013, in front of a crowd of 60,963 people, in addition to a few songs from the arena leg of the tour. At the conclusion of 2013, the tour was placed on Pollstar's annual "Year End Top 20 Worldwide Tours", and appeared 13th worldwide, earning over $103 million with 79 shows in 2013.[4]
The 2nd Law World Tour has quickly become known for its extravagant and unique stage show. For the arena tour, some of the effects used include:
An enormous pyramid of LED screens that gradually descends and "consumes" the band during the show..
Large use of strobe lighting as well as corrupted system text on a floor panoramic screen during "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable".
Drummer Dominic Howard being revealed by the pyramid as it ascends during "Uprising".
A piano rising from the ground during "Monty Jam".
A life-size grid forming on the pyramid during "The 2nd Law: Isolated System".
Laser lights of many different colors shooting in different directions during "Madness", "Follow Me" and "Survival".
Synchronized lyrics appearing on as many as 10-17 different screens during "Knights of Cydonia".
Robotic likenesses of the letter "M" featured in the lyric video for "Madness" appearing as it is performed.
A large roulette appearing on the screens and in the pyramid choosing between "New Born" or "Stockholm Syndrome". If the green slot is chosen, the band will play a different song.
Carbon dioxide cannons blasting off on the final beats of "Survival".
For the summer stadium shows, under the moniker The Unsustainable Tour, the band performed in a re-designed stage show. This show included:
Lead singer Matthew Bellamy during "Feeling Good" at Emirates Stadium London
A huge curved video screen with windows, dubbed the "Power Station" by Matthew Bellamy.
A huge bomb exploding on the B-stage during the intro to "Supremacy".
A number of brand new visuals, including a power station central reactor during "Supremacy", "Bliss", "Map of the Problematique", "Starlight" and some parts of "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable", and dancing politicians during "Panic Station".
Six white chimneys used for pyrotechnics during "Supremacy", "Knights of Cydonia", "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable" and "Survival".
A floating balloon shaped like a light bulb carrying an acrobat during "Blackout" and "Guiding Light".
A long B-stage which the band performed four tracks on during the first encore, and which band members run up and down during the gig.
A robot named "Charles" by Matthew Bellamy for "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable".
Confetti cannons firing Muse-themed banknotes during the ending to "Animals".
Two different actors appearing during "Animals" and "Feeling Good" respectively. A male actor plays a banker throwing notes at the crowd before dying during "Animals" and the actress appears drinking from a petrol pump and collapsing during "Feeling Good". Chris playing "Man with a Harmonica" near the dead body of the banker after "Animals". Both the actors appears inside separate coffins during "Undisclosed Desires".
CO2 cannons blasting off during the ending of "Follow Me".
Setlist[]
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The European arena tour setlist was based around the same general idea: If "Hysteria" was played third, "Stockholm Syndrome" would close the main set and "Knights of Cydonia" would close the first encore, with "Survival" closing the second encore. However, if "Map of the Problematique" was played third, then "New Born" closed the main set and "Knights of Cydonia" and "Survival" were switched around. This also determined when the carbon dioxide cannons were set off, as depending on the show closer, it switched between "Survival" and "Knights of Cydonia". There was usually one song from the debut album Showbiz played somewhere in the middle of the setlist, usually "Sunburn" and to a lesser extent, "Falling Down". In the latter half of the tour, for venues which had multiple shows, the setlist on the second night would often have more rarities, with tracks like "Agitated", "Yes Please", "Hyper Music" and "Butterflies and Hurricanes" making appearances.
Muse performing "Follow Me" in Manchester during The 2nd Law Tour
During the North American tour, Knights of Cydonia was played in the middle of the show, instead of the encore. Starting 10 March at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the band began shows with "The 2nd Law: Isolated System", instead of "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable". Unsustainable was played in the encore, before Uprising. Following that change, venues with back-to-back shows (i.e. Madison Saquare Garden in New York, the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, and the Bell Centre in Montreal) featured "The 2nd Law: Isolated System" as the opener on the first night and "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable" as the opener on the second night. In each case, the other song was shifted to the encore before Uprising. In Quebec City, on 26 April, the band again opened with "The 2nd Law: Unsustainable", playing Isolated System at the beginning of the first encore, before Uprising. There was also frequent rotation of several other songs, with "Bliss" and "Map of the Problematique" sometimes appearing instead of Hysteria, and both "Sunburn" and "Feeling Good" making appearances either in addition to, or in place of "Explorers".
Muse performing "Stockholm Syndrome" during The Unsustainable Tour
Matthew Bellamy performed a solo guitar version of the "Star Spangled Banner" as an introduction to songs throughout the US dates of the tour.
In response to a fan campaign, Muse played Dead Star at the 10 April Toronto ACC show, and again at the 16 April Madison Square Garden show when the roulette video landed on a blank green square (rather than either "New Born" or "Stockholm Syndrome"). At the 24 April show in Montreal, the roulette wheel again landed on the green square; this time the band played Micro Cuts (in response to a sign given to Matt by a fan the previous night), marking the first time the song had appeared on the tour.
