Muse have announced they are adding extra UK shows to their 2016 Drones world tour.
The stadium rockers were met with expected hype when they announced a globe trotting tour themed around their latest album ‘Drones’. So much hype, in fact, that they have since added a further three more shows to their UK leg.
Since announcing the tour last week the band have played a surprise gig at London’s Electric Ballroom (11 September). The Camden gig, operating on a first-come first-serve basis, and with a mere 1,100 person capacity, proved to be one of their most intimate shows in over a decade.
The upcoming arena-only tour promises to be anything but intimate, however, with the band planning their biggest and most spectacular shows yet. With frontman Matt Bellamy telling BBC Radio 2 that “it’s our version of The Wall, basically”; which makes sense considering the artwork of ‘Drones’ is somewhat evocative of Pink Floyd’s famous walking hammers. The band have also revealed the shows will feature a swarm of drones and a revolving stage.
Production designer Oli Metcalfe and tour director Glen Rowe spoke to NME about what to expect from the theatrical trio’s most ambitious tour yet. Metcalfe divulged that the stage “looks like a double headed arrow essentially,” and that “it spans the length of the arena. It’s quite narrow but more importantly for the audience its low, so the band will be playing in an intimate space, and have a good relationship in terms of distance from their audience.”
The stage design is inspired by “boxing rings” according to Rowe.”We thought, let’s make a tiny stage in the middle of the arena so it’s a small circle with two runs ways with what you call a hammerhead at each end, where things can pop up and we can make technology work. The whole circle moves one revolution per hour. The idea is Matt starts there and an hour later he comes back, so in the show everyone sees him [up close] twice.”
The most spectacular part of the shows will no doubt be the eponymous drones. Metcalfe explained: “we’ve been able to work with a company in the Netherlands that have written a piece of software that can control a whole swarm of drones so we’re programming them in a different way. They’re not manned, they’re not manned vehicles as in somebody with a controller. They’re controlled by a computer system and tracking system.”
Regardless of flying drones and revolving stages, Muse will undoubtedly perform a slew of incendiary gigs – as always – throughout the forthcoming Drones tour. And with promises of this being their most extravagant tour yet, it’s shaping to be one that Muse fans won’t want to miss.
Tour Dates:
5/4 – Dublin 3Arena
6/4 – Belfast SSE Arena
8/4 – Manchester Arena
9/4 – Manchester Arena
11/4 – London O2
12/4 – London O2
14/4 – London O2
15/4 – London O2
17/4 – Glasgow SSE Hydro
18/4 – Glasgow SSE Hydro
