Muse at Boston Garden January 25th 2016

When I found out Muse was playing I knew I wanted to go, no, had to go. I had missed about three concerts going back to the summer of 2015 because of work. This time I was going and that was that. Paul and Lou had bought tickets back when they went on sale in the fall and I kind of just forgot until our Christmas night on the Common. Then I forgot again until a week before the show and that’s when I hit the ticket agencies. I didn’t care where I sat— floor, loge or balcony, as long as I could hear them cleanly. I almost bought a ticket from vendors due to my impatience but these days I have a hard time, on principle mind you, handing over an extra twenty bucks for transaction fees. So I went to Craigslist. Most people were selling pairs but I was going solo. Rich had wanted to go but backed out the preceding week. I didn’t put great effort into rustling up company— half ass threw it out on Facebook but met little response. Finally I found a guy in Brookline who was selling one ticket for 75 bucks. That Saturday, during the initial flurries of the snowstorm, I drove in, met him, thanked him and was gone.

Anytime I see a show in Boston I usually park at the old garage for free at 125 High Street. None of the heads are there after 6:00 and trust me, Security doesn’t know the difference between who is parked in the garage or not. I know this from my time as a security officer there. I can even get passed the doors by pulling up to the garage door where the buzzer, speaker and camera is located. I say in my best nonchalant voice, “firehouse,” and they buzz me in. That’s how the firehouse people and their friends get into the building. They have their own free parking area. Besides, I got my nephew on Robin’s side, also named Kyle, a job there as a security officer, about a year ago. They love him and he has influence so if I need to fall back on him to park, I can. 

Anyway. Good night for a walk through Boston, 20 minutes to the Garden on a not so cold winter night. The overhead Christmas lights that line the Fanuel Hall plaza were still up, blinking wonderfully. Inside the Garden, my seats were balcony, first row (no one in front of me) and perfect for taking some video. Pretty much aligned with center stage, just a hair to the left. Perfect filming conditions actually. I generally film with my camera if I have a good vantage point, which I did. If I don’t have good spot , I either abandon the idea or just take a clip or two. This night I captured 5 songs. I created a montage of them that I put on Facebook. I don’t like to bombard the Facebook feed with a lot of stuff so I just sampled the five files into one. I thought if there were any Muse fans out there that they might enjoy it but no one commented on it so… that was a waste of time... oh well. Here are the tunes I captured, for the most part in their entirety.

I had to water down these videos from high quality to low quality so they would make the 100 megabyte size restriction per file. Also, though I love the video quality of my camera, the zoom sucks-- it doesn't have a fluid motion. When I zoom in or out, it does so a frame at a time which looks choppy and unprofessional. Generally I try not to use zoom on it unless I know that I will be editing out the zooms later.

The second to last clip is the montage file I posted on Facebook. The last clip, a 45 second clip was taken with my cell phone so I could text it to Rich and Dano so they could see and feel the atmosphere of the show.