Homecoming Kings

September 4, 2009 7:08 AM

It's every young musician's dream: Quit this town, make it big and come back to show these squares! Well, tonight (and tomorrow) Muse return home to Teignmouth in Devon, England (pop. 15,116) to play two home-town, homecoming gigs.

Ten thousand people each night will be descending from all over the UK (and Europe) onto historical Teignmouth to see the band play at The Den, a park on the seafront where the townsfolk have been gathering for hundreds of years.

But getting permission for an event on such an enormous scale in a sleepy seaside town wasn't easy, even for a band of Muse's stature. The band's bass player, Chris Wolstenholme personally attended the Teignmouth Council meetings to discuss the shows and put forward the band's position. After agreeing to fund cleaning and resoration of The Den, and take responsibility for the added requirements of traffic and transport, the Council gave their go ahead just a fortnight ago.

The UK's prime pop radio station, Radio One will be there for Saturday's show, with DJ Zane Lowe broadcasting his show live before the gig. Later shows in the evening will contain live tracks from the gig.

"A Seaside Rendezvous" (as the band have dubbed the shows) sees the start of over three months of touring to support the band's upcoming new album The Resistance...

posted by benzo8 (8 comments total)

Love it! So typically West Country - the crossroads of stoned alternative and blue rinse lifestyles . . .

Check these for an idea of more day-to-day civic proceedings in Teignmouth . . .
posted by protorp at 7:36 AM on September 4, 2009

Muse are a horribly, horribly overrated band IMO - and should be flayed for what they did to Feeling Good in the opinion of all right-thinking individuals - but this is pretty amazing for the kids round there. Biggest band we got in our home town was Smokey.
posted by mippy at 8:13 AM on September 4, 2009

Time is running out.
posted by plexi at 8:16 AM on September 4, 2009

Nice idea (although I'm not really a fan). The roads in this area leave a lot to be desired at the best of times (I live in Torquay, about 5 miles away). Fortunately I leave work at 7.30pm today and tomorrow so hopefully won't get caught in the horrible traffic jams that are bound to ensue...
posted by etc at 9:37 AM on September 4, 2009

"More people than Teignmouth has ever seen!"
posted by benzo8 at 10:47 AM on September 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

The band are taking to the stage in about an hour, within walking distance of my house. They've apparently erected sound buffers to deflect the noise away from residents. I'll be going tomorrow.

There's a highlight show on Radio 1 on Monday. It'll contain a documentary about the band called "Muse At Ten."
posted by takeyourmedicine at 11:36 AM on September 4, 2009

cool. i saw muse at austin city limits in ... 2006, i think. the band was a big deal. they were the last band on the stage i was working at, and we had very strict orders about keeping people away from the backstage area. i'd never heard of them before & was very curious. not particularly my cup of tea, but they did a good job, seemed to have fun, and the crowd loved them.

a town the size of teignmouth would have been a HUGE city to me when i was growing up. i'm trying to imagine how an influx of people like this would be handled in my hometown, and it boggles the mind. traffic like that would decimate my home turf. but what a rush for the people in the area! love it or hate it, that's probably more excitement than teignmouth will see for the next couple hundred years.

i just hope they comp some seats for their homies.
posted by msconduct at 1:11 PM on September 4, 2009

mippy: Muse are a horribly, horribly overrated band IMO
[...]
Biggest band we got in our home town was Smokey.

Well, duh. Why would any good band want to play in a small town full of people with clearly no musical taste? :)

NOT MUSE-IST
posted by hincandenza at 7:04 PM on September 4, 2009