Tonight I along with half of lower Manhattan (and a quarter of Long Island and New Jersey) saw MUSE at Hammerstein Ballroom. I’m still totally amazed at how such a TINY little man like Matt Bellamy can command the rapt attention of such a HUGE room.

Muse has a spectacular stage set up, with three large projection screens set behind the band, which used live feeds from cameras positioned in the venue to produce ginormous pictures like Matt Bellamy’s head, but about 30 feet tall.

It was fun when they panned the crowd and you could see all the supersweaty kids waving to themselves. (Was there like NO AIRCONDITIONING THERE OR WHAT?!)

Lots of oldies but goodies like “Time Is Running Out” and the first song that turned me on to Muse, “Plug In Baby”.

“Knights of Cydonia” was one of the encores…

On the way back to the subway Jeff pointed out the Project Runway window at Macy’s, so I had to stop and take a picture:

Awww… Look! It’s the Keith dress. If you listen to Tim Gunn’s podcast, seriously, you’ll get so sad about Keith having to leave. Tim makes it seem like Keith was really bummed out on the show…but he did bring it upon himself.

Oh yes. The Nano has reached the Pope. I hear he downloads illegally ripped German death metal.

A group of Vatican Radio employees gave Pope Benedict XVI a brand new iPod nano loaded with special Vatican Radio programming and classical music.

To honor the pope’s first visit to the radio’s broadcasting headquarters, the radio’s technical staff decided the pencil-thin, state-of-the-art audio player would make the perfect gift.

Check out this awesome interview with internationally known dance music DJ Pete Tong from Wired. He has some really interesting things to say about how technology is affecting the art of djing, how aspiring spinners can start gaining a following, and what Apple needs to do in order to keep folks like him feeling good about the company…among other things. Here are some highlights:

“Be as entrepreneurial as you can; no one will do everything for you. There’s no better way I know to build a reputation as a DJ than to do your own thing, do something different, start your own night, get your own crowd. If you are getting 50 people to a bar on a Tuesday, people will check you out. Once you have a crowd, you have a scene, it’s human nature. Taste is the most important thing.”

“Things have changed so much. Bands can build an audience all by themselves. Market research has gone out the window, labels just follow the heat, really. They maximize artists who are already doing well. I think it’s really honest, actually. Almost everyone who arrives at a label’s door already has a story.”

“In terms of radio, podcasting’s the most exciting development ever. For anyone with a niche or specialist reputation it’s manna from heaven… Podcasting is the next stage: You can grab it, download it to your iPod and subscribe to it. I just want to be in there to see where it takes us.”