Muse Underlines Drones Album With – Well—drones

A Grammy-nominated prog-rock band is taking the name of their latest album literally — releasing a dozen drones at a recent Arizona concert (and several venues) in support of their latest album titled, appropriately, “Drones.”

The drones circled Gila River Arena in Glendale last week at the Muse concert, spotlighting the crowd and seemingly orbiting the crowd for the astronomically-themed hit “Supermassive Black Hole.”

“After 30 years of attending arena rock spectacles, from Pink Floyd to U2, there isn’t much I haven’t seen,” said AZCentral writer Michael Senft said. “It should set the bar for arena tours to come,” he added.

Senft reported that the band had experienced technical glitches with the UAV fleet in previous shows but that the drone flight seemed to come off without a hitch last week. Given the Drone Revolution of 2015 powered by massive spikes in UAV sales, it is somehow appropriate and maybe even poetic that Muse received the Grammy nod last week for “Drones in the Best Rock Album Category.

Writing for the Phoenix New Times, David Accomazzo speculated that drones may become a mainstay for arena rock.

“The music industry tends to be very slow to embrace new technological trends,” Accomazzo writes. “Drones will increasingly become more present in everyday life as time goes on, so cheers to Muse for recognizing an artistic application.”

“The concert designers for the Muse show had this creative element — drones — that had very little (possibly no) precedent in a live music setting, and you couldn’t help but grin and watch the fun,” he added.

While Muse may find drones useful for added concert flair, the band intends the flying globes to symbolize a dystopian future.

“The point of the drones is, they’re definitely an intimidating presence,” Muse drummer Dom Howard told the Las Vegas Review-Journal ahead of a Dec. 6 show.

“That was the idea when we brought them into the show. We called them ‘hunters’ and ‘seekers,’ hovering over the audience, with spotlights over the audience, filming the audience, and then we project that onto the screen,” Howard added. “It’s this feeling of intimidation, and invasion of your personal space.”