So Muse were playing like 15 minutes from my house the other day - naturally me and Stef were going to go down to the V Festival 2008 and perceive their awesomeness.

We began our Muse-fest by playing Guitar Hero 3 (yes, yes, I've bought the extra Muse tracks) on my PS3 and watching the HAARP DVD - Stef was actually THERE at Wembley, and I didn't go, which I hate myself for. We then headed down to Hylands Park to prepare ourselves for the almighty Muse - one problem, we didn't have tickets. Well, that's not really a problem I guess considering how seductive we can be as a team to strange men/women. Sure enough, we got into the special area within minutes, complete with clean toilets and everything!

Having both agreed we're now too old to be impaled on the crush-barrier we went to scout out the main V-stage for a good location, but then I got distracted by some cups - I saw a Carling tent offering 10p for every cup you returned! Woah there! Stef and her sister went to get some pics of Will Young, who came prancing out onto the shitty little stage inside a clown's tent (ha ha, oh the rise and fall, the rise and fall) and then proceeded to move with the elegance of a "confident black mamba woman" in a repugnant display of "middle-aged man still thinks he's a hot teen" action. In the mean time, I went around collecting cups off the ground, because I'm that Dog damned cool! I even found a massive skip that some fat bitch had walked into a knocked over, creating a river of cups! Oh, the joys! I didn't even need the money, but who could resist it, honestly - cups everywhere, and 10p a cup, I simply couldn't help myself!

After many more priceless cup collecting moments, I went to the cup-tent thing and proudly handed the regal young gentleman my cups, only to be told the Pepsi ones didn't count! DOG DAMN IT! After many MANY more priceless cup collecting moments, I went BACK to the cup-tent thing and proudly handed the regal young gentleman my CARLING cups - smugly staring down my nose at the "cup collector" as he handed me my small fortune.

It's funny, because several people looked at me as if I was some sort of freak for collecting these cups, but fast-forward to an hour later, there were literally DOZENS of people doing the exact same thing, fighting over the cups whilst I serenely sat on the floor watching them work, eating my pizza, which I had bought with my cup money - AND it turns out it was the best pizza in existence (and I'm a proper pizza freak) - I even noted down the company website as I simply MUST make an enquiry as to how I can obtain more of these delightful discs of pleasure.

Anywho, yeah, I made money from cups, Stef and Jacqui saw Will Young prance around, then what... erm... oh yeah, then we went to the shops and played with the crap hats and glasses and big hippy jumpers, which is always fun, well it was, 'til some Thai bitch kept harassing us "you want help?" "no thanks" *literally 30 seconds later* "you want help?" "get the fuck away from me before I spit at you" urgh it annoys me so much! Then we headed off to the main stage for Muse-ness. Ooooooh, Muuuuseee it's been sooo looong.

I really had my hopes on them busting out some choons from the new album, but they didn't, which annoys me greatly because there's no leaks of anything so I have no CLUES as to what it will be like - all I know is that there's a couple of tracks that resemble vintage U2 - think Bloody Sunday and New Years Day.

They opened with Take a Bow, I think, I can't remember actually. I remember the sound levels being shit, so you could barely hear the guitar for a lot of songs. The deadstar riff was mute,  which totally ruined the song, plus the screens messed up, buuuut all was well after about 40 minutes - the levels were sorted out and the screens were up. Still a shame though as Deadstar would have been awesome! Matt played Space Dimentia too, which we'd never heard live, so that was cool, as well as the usual suspects from the Blackholes album - Supermassive, Starlight, Invincible, etc, with a couple of classics from the Origin-Absolution era thrown in such as Plug in Baby, New Born and Stockholm Syndrome.

They closed with Knights of Cydonia preluded by three or four minutes of harmonica, which was a first! It concluded amidst a shit load of lasers, fireworks, flames, smoke and spinning satellite dishes hitting us with more lasers and strobe lighting!

Needless to say, Muse once against justified why they have so many best live act awards! They were amazing!