Muse

To be fair, I haven't listened to any of their older albums in probably 7-8 years. The newer stuff has been so awful that I don't really want to grapple with how those ones I used to like might hold up or not.

This is exactly how I feel. Albums 2-4 had their moments, I even kinda liked The Resistance, but everything I've heard since (just a song or two here and there) has been so unbelievably bad I'm terrified to revisit the old stuff.

people always say they're great live, and really lean on that they're meant to put on a spectacular show and be amazing live, but if all they do is play songs by Muse surely it can't be good

I can definitely imagine their music going over really well live. I saw Coldplay in 2003 — they were great. Similarly, Rammstein put on an incredible show in 2010 and I never listen to their studio albums, even though I own most of them. Iron Maiden are also a hell of a lot more fun to see than to listen to at home.

i saw them in 2010 during my teen muse fandom & it was pretty good but i don't think i'd be that moved if i saw the same concert now. stage set-up was the most ridiculous they ever had, with video screen pillars that they performed on for a bunch of the set

I saw Coldplay in 2005, my grandparents bought tickets for the entire family after hearing me talk about being a big fan of Goldfrapp and confusing the two because they sound similar (!) I don't really remember much about the show per se but I do remember seeing a man take a line of cocaine during "Fix You" so someone had a wild night at least

if all they do is play songs by Muse

Fake news. They actually play the Third Eye Blind catalogue.

One of the weirdest things about Muse: they were teenagers who were into Mega City Four and Senseless Things in about 1994

i still want to know what they were listening to when they made their first album because a lot of that is deeply strange rock music that doesn't really sound like anything else i've ever heard. it isn't very good for the most part, but where are all those weird latin-sounding chord progressions coming from, for instance

Beyond the basic tenants of classical piano, Metallica and what not (also maybe stuff John Leckie was showing them) I'm not sure what all the touchstones were, but I do know Matt's travels around Europe as a teenager and hearing lots of flamenco apparently fed into it - especially Uno.