HAARP (album)

Set design

For their performances at Wembley, Muse had the stadium decked out with massive props to dress it as the HAARP, a US government-funded ionospheric research program in Gakona, Alaska which uses high frequency radio waves to cause changes in the ionosphere. Muse frontman Matt Bellamy is well known as a "conspiracy theorist", and stated in a 2006 interview "Some people think it's designed to tap into the ionosphere to control the weather. Others think it's there to diffuse Ufo beams, or to send out microwaves to control our thoughts". In 2008 he explained to Virgin Radio "All these sort of antennas, cables, screens and stuff are based on the same sort of layout as the HAARP layout".

Release and promotion

In the build-up to the release of the recordings, the band released a number of web-format clips from the DVD. The full performance of "Unintended" was added to the band's official website on Christmas Eve, 24 December 2007, dubbed as a "little taste of things to come". On 11 January 2008, a microsite at www.he-3.mu was announced, featuring a grid of six boxes representing thumbnails of short clips from the DVD. As of 17 March, all six clips have been filled, featuring short clips from "Knights of Cydonia", "Supermassive Black Hole", "Feeling Good", "New Born", "Blackout" and the outro riffs of "Stockholm Syndrome". "Feeling Good" was also released in full to radio and television stations shortly afterwards, although it was not advertised on the official website. Vue cinemas held special screenings of the concert in high definition on 11 March 2008 at select cinemas.

A special edition of HAARP was released in addition to the regular CD/DVD, which features additional backstage footage and bonus postcards showing pictures of the three band members. The HAARP microsite is available for visitors to download iPod- and iPod Touch-/iPhone-formatted videos and mp3s of "Knights of Cydonia", "Supermassive Black Hole", "Unintended" and "Plug in Baby" featured on the DVD for free. Included is a bonus video of "Micro Cuts" and an mp3 of "City of Delusion" from the performance on 16 June.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Matthew Bellamy, except where otherwise noted.

Notes

5. ^ An easter egg features on the DVD. If the 'Gallery' screen is displayed, the left button on the remote control can be clicked to highlight Dominic Howard's trousers. If the enter button is pressed whilst the trousers are highlighted, a screen will come up advertising the band's website.