This year’s Mad Cool Festival started off on the back foot – Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill’s broken one, specifically. The “Use Somebody” hitmakers pulled out of the festival, often billed as Spain’s answer to Coachella, in May after Followill was rushed to surgery, having shattered his heel in a “freak accident” while playing with his children.
Enter Muse, the rock stalwarts who swooped in to save the first night of the three-day festival in Madrid’s Iberdrola Music arena. Frontman and conspiracy-theorist-in-chief Matt Bellamy proves he hadn’t lost flair for revving up a crowd, brandishing his guitar like a chainsaw as he slides up and down the frets through a repertoire of gargantuan rock hits including “Supermassive Black Hole” and “Time is Running Out”. At one point, huge flames shoot upwards out of the back of the stage. Elated screams intensify.
