Easily in the top three gigs I've been to. Pics (taken on the phonecam, so of extreme crappiness) are here and thoughts after the jump.

I still haven't seen an entire Secret Machines gig... I couldn't really get away from work before 5.30pm, but I figured two hours would be sufficient to get around the North Circular to Earl's Court before the stated opening time of 7.30pm

I was right... however, when I got into the arena at 7.15pm, TSM were already on stage. I got to hear about three songs - which isn't bad given their length.

After the TSM finished I went to get something to eat. The choice was limited, as was the beer. I ended up with a pint of Grolsch and a plate of chicken nuggets that appeared to have been warmed, washed, dried and re-heated.

It's possible the mild stomach upset I thus endured may have soured me to the funk/soul/jazz/country stylings of The Zutons. On the other hand, I never like the saxaphone, and having it forcibly inserted into every song grated. Actually, one of their songs didn't feature it - but that just meant the saxaphonist had to do an Ashlee Simpson-style hoedown for the duration.

The stomach was OK by the time Muse came on. Let's start with the volume... I've not had my ears blasted since going to see Six By Seven in a relatively small venue in NYC. This was Earl's Court though... which is fairly large.

I was sitting right in the middle of first row of seats. This meant I was a ways back from the stage since there was a large "standing" area taking up the centre of the arena. I've never felt the need to bounce around like a dervish, so a chair and an uninterrupted view of the proceeding was like heaven for me.

It wasn't for a lot of others mind you... I was on route one for people who couldn't get standing tickets but wanted to be in there anyway. The security staff knew this and had positioned minders on the other side of the seven-foot drop to throw back anyone who made it over.

I think they caught maybe 10% of those who leapt over the railings. This was possibly because they were all wearing yellow t-shirts and were easy to spot. And easy to tell when they weren't there. Later, they were replaced by people in dark t-shirts mingled with the crowd and had a much better success rate.

At one point two boys and a girl came down. The boys managed to leap the fence at the same time as the girl turned around to look the other way. Result: they disappeared into the crowd and she stood looking lost as the guard wandered past. A moment came to jump over and we all whispered "jump" but she hesitated, then went - and the guard spotted her. She did make it over eventually though.

On another occasion one of the jumpees returned to get her coat and stuff. When the request was relayed to someone in the seats near where she'd been sitting, and the coat was passed forward, she'd already turned and gone back into the melee.

Meanwhile, Muse were going great guns. Matt smashed his guitar about three songs in and threw the pieces into the crowd. The volume was, perhaps, not helping. The reverberations in the arena tending to overwhelm the louder stuff and much of Hysteria's guitarwork was lost (or maybe it was a crappy guitar... he was going to smash it).

The piano-led pieces came off better (or maybe my hearing was being stunned) and, in a cool touch, the housing of the keyboard had rows of lights that lit up in response to the notes. It was like seeing the music - though, that said, the girl next to me could do that anyway...

Either I was getting used to the echos, or the latter-used guitars were not-for-smashing, but things were much improved as we went along. They finished up with two encores, including a new song (which prompted much discussion on Muse boards as XFM, who were playing the concert live, replaced it with an already released track from the previous night for, presumably, anti-bootlegging reasons). The last song played was Stockholm Syndrome - the second best track from Absolution after Hysteria - and they destroyed the drum kit and left the stage to a looped feedback howl a la Sonic Youth.

Well worth the £30 tickets and £15 for parking.