MUSE might have been together for nearly 20 years - but at Manchester's Etihad Stadium on Saturday they proved why they are one of the best - exploding onto the stage - backed up by giant flame throwers.

There were plenty of gimmicks to keep the crowd entertained - a giant floating light bulb complete with acrobat, actors portraying the dangers of greed throwing money to the audience and a rather large robot who was determined to get centre stage.

But when you really got down to it, what everyone really wanted was to see a band at the top of their game perform.

And that's just what you got - with a lot of spectacle thrown in.

After a warm-up by Bastille and Dizzie Rascal, who really wanted the audience to 'jump' around a lot, Muse came on to Supremacy, from their most recent album The 2nd Law, followed up by the brilliant Supermassive Black Hole.

The ever popular Panic Station and Bliss followed - but it was when Knights of Cydonia struck up that the crowd really went mad.

Other highlights were Time is Running Out, Stockholm Syndrome and Uprising in the second encore - which literally had the whole stadium vibrating.

The lads from Devon played for nearly two hours and there was a really good mix of new and old, which comes from having a great back catalogue to choose from.

My only disappointment was they failed to play one of my favourites - Hysteria - after I'd been waiting all night in anticipation for intro song Interlude to come on.

But then again there's always the next tour to look forward to and the hope it will it be on the set list next time.