I remember Bruce ****inson of Iron Maiden saying when you play a big show everything you do has to be big and grand so the person in the back doesn't feel so far away. Which Matt certainly does.

Yeh, actually my interest in them sparked when I saw some vids of the HAARP show on youtube.

I was actually at that HAARP show. Well, technically, I was at the show the day before, heh. Pretty much the same thing, though. Anyway, you've already said it: they really, really know how to play to a stadium crowd. It's funny you mention Iron Maiden 'cause I think Muse and Maiden are the only two bands I'd rather see play to 90,000 people than to 3,000.

Yeah some bands are just built for the big stadium stage both sonically and visually... Muse are definitely a big stadium statement band, and more power to 'em.... its hard to pull off!

I think the sound on HAARP is fairly poor for a modern live album. It fails to capture the atmosphere of a huge live Muse gig, instead it sounds as though they're only playing to a few hundred people. Also, the capturing of the instruments isn't as dynamic as some of the great live albums out there. It's a shame because big Muse concerts are generally good but I feel this album is pretty poor, sound wise.

Yeh I have to agree. I listened to abit of the album before I watched the show and thought the quality was pretty bad. But when I heard it again after watching the show and it sounded better, but it's probably because I had something visual in my head to help the music.

Definitely

not to mention some of the clearly non-stadium songs they played like Soldier's Poem and Unintended

I think both of those songs are pretty awful. =\

I love Unintended, but I'd hate to see it in a live show in the place of much more energetic songs.

I just got Hullabaloo and am listening through it right now. I have to say it's awhole lot better than I expected it to be. Really great stuff, Shine (Acoustic) is what I think to be their best acoustic numbers and the background water noise just add to it's beauty and Yes Please is an amazing piece of pure distortion. I think the band sounds better here than they do now. That whole OSS era was really their peak. To bad the dressed so awful, I mean really Matt and his hellraiser spiked hair looked so ridiculous. But nowadays the band is really styling.

You can now listen to 30 second samples of every song on the itunes store.

I think the album's going to suck besides the symphonic song(s).