Muse at the Hollywood Bowl: the final California stop of The Wow! Signal tour
Muse arrives at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with a concert that holds a special place in the current schedule: it is the final North American night of The Wow! Signal tour. The event begins at 19:00, and Portugal. The Man and The Temper Trap are also listed alongside Muse for the same evening. The program therefore brings together alternative and progressive rock, indie pop and more psychedelic textures.
Muse comes to this tour immediately after the release of its tenth studio album The Wow! Signal, released on 26 June 2026. It is the band's first new studio album since Will of the People from 2022 and material that once again connects the current concerts with themes of space, technology, isolation and emotional tension. Performances so far nevertheless show that the band does not build the evening only around new songs: the repertoire brings together new material and key tracks from different stages of its career.
For long-time fans, the appeal lies precisely in this collision of eras. For audiences who know Muse mainly through songs such as Supermassive Black Hole, Uprising, Madness, Starlight or Knights of Cydonia, the concert offers a direct entry into the band's current phase. It is worth securing tickets in time.
Why The Wow! Signal matters for this concert
The new album has ten songs and brings Muse back toward a sound in which heavy guitar riffs, synthesizers, orchestral ideas, electronic rhythms and Bellamy's dramatic vocals collide. Reviews following its release particularly highlighted its deliberate grandiosity, but also the very direct melodies beneath the dense production. This matters in a concert context because it is precisely on stage that Muse turns studio layering into a physically powerful rock performance.
The album opens with The Dark Forest, while songs that have defined the current phase include Be With You, Cryogen, Hexagons, Unravelling and Nightshift Superstar. The first weeks of the tour already showed that several of these tracks quickly fitted in among older concert favourites. Cryogen, Hexagons, Unravelling and Be With You in particular were frequent at US dates during July and August.
That does not mean the Hollywood Bowl will receive an identical running order. Muse changes individual parts of the set, and the Los Angeles setlist has not been announced in advance. Previous performances nevertheless give a clear sense of the logic of the evening: a powerful opening, rapid transitions between new material and major catalogue songs, and a finale built around tracks the audience recognises within the first few seconds.
What recent performances have shown
At concerts immediately before the California finale, the core of the repertoire kept recurring:
- Hysteria, Supermassive Black Hole, Time Is Running Out, Uprising and Knights of Cydonia remain important pillars of the evening.
- Cryogen, Hexagons, Unravelling and Be With You represent The Wow! Signal in the main part of the concert.
- Plug In Baby, Madness and Psycho have also appeared frequently on the current US dates.
- Nightshift Superstar, Starlight, Undisclosed Desires and Take a Bow have appeared at individual shows, but their appearance in Los Angeles is not guaranteed.
This pattern suits an audience that wants a cross-section of the band's career rather than a concert devoted to a single album. Chris Wolstenholme's bass, Dominic Howard's drums and Bellamy's combination of guitar, keyboards and high-register vocals create a distinctive framework in which metal, prog, electronics and arena-rock melodies alternate.
Portugal. The Man and The Temper Trap expand the evening
Alongside Muse, Portugal. The Man and The Temper Trap are listed for the Hollywood Bowl. Portugal. The Man is best known to audiences for the song Feel It Still, but their catalogue mixes alternative rock, psychedelic pop, soul and more dance-oriented rhythms. The Temper Trap brings more emotional indie rock, with Sweet Disposition as their most widely recognised signature song.
The available schedule for the Hollywood Bowl publishes the event start time, but not the precise timing of each individual performance. For that reason, 19:00 is best treated as the start of the entire concert evening rather than as a guaranteed time for Muse to take the stage. Anyone who wants to see the support acts should plan to arrive sufficiently early.
The Hollywood Bowl is not an ordinary arena
The Hollywood Bowl opened in 1922 and today has a capacity of 17,500 seats. It is located in a natural amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills, at 2301 N Highland Ave. Its shell-shaped stage and rising seating are part of the venue's identity, but for a rock concert the way sound travels across the large open space is equally important.
The teams working on the Bowl's sound system particularly emphasise the challenge of turning a space for 17,500 people into an experience that does not sound distant and cold. For Muse, this is an interesting combination. The band likes monumental production, broad dynamic transitions and a sound that must simultaneously convey the weight of the bass and guitar as well as clear vocal and electronic details. The open amphitheatre gives those elements a different character from an enclosed sports arena.
The view varies depending on the section, especially because of the considerable distance between the nearest and highest rows, but the Bowl is designed around the idea that sound reaches the entire audience. For visitors in the upper sections, the experience also includes a wider view of the amphitheatre, the illuminated stage shell and the Hollywood hillside surrounding it. Seats are disappearing quickly.
Who will find this concert especially interesting
Long-time fans get a combination of the current album and a repertoire spanning more than two decades. Hysteria and Time Is Running Out go back to the Absolution era, Supermassive Black Hole and Knights of Cydonia to Black Holes and Revelations, while Uprising, Madness, Psycho and later songs show how the band expanded its arena-rock sound.
For newer audiences, the advantage is that The Wow! Signal is not an isolated addition to the old catalogue. On recent dates, five songs from the album appeared in the same concert, showing how fully the new phase has already been integrated into the band's live identity.
Los Angeles as the end of the North American leg of the tour
According to the current schedule, the Hollywood Bowl performance closes the North American leg of the tour before concert activities continue in Europe later in the year. That gives the date greater significance than an ordinary stop between two cities. The band arrives in Los Angeles after a run of summer amphitheatres and festivals across the United States and Canada, so by that point its concert form has already been shaped through a long series of performances.
At the same time, the Hollywood Bowl is not an enclosed arena where the entire show can be controlled in the same way as in an indoor venue. The evening sky, the hillside surrounding the audience and the character of the open space become part of the concert's visual setting. For a band whose new album once again uses space-related themes, a finale under the open sky in Los Angeles provides a fitting setting without any need to promise effects or surprises in advance that have not been confirmed.
How to get to the Hollywood Bowl
Arriving by car is not the simplest option. The Hollywood Bowl warns that parking next to the venue is very limited, that vehicles are often parked one behind another and that capacity may be filled in advance. Parking on surrounding residential streets is not recommended and may result in a fine.
For public transport, the Metro B Line to Hollywood/Highland station is a practical option. From there, a Bowl shuttle operates from the Ovation Hollywood area, and passengers with a valid TAP card or appropriate Metro pass can use this continuation of the journey toward the amphitheatre. For rideshare vehicles, the pickup and drop-off zone is located in Lot C, at 6655 Odin St.
The Hollywood Bowl recommends arriving at least 90 minutes before the performance begins. For an evening with two support acts, this is a useful margin for transport, security screening, finding your section and moving through the large auditorium.
- Address: 2301 N Highland Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90068.
- Metro connection: B Line to Hollywood/Highland, then the Bowl shuttle.
- Rideshare zone: Lot C, 6655 Odin St.
- Recommended arrival: at least 90 minutes before the program begins.
- Parking next to the Bowl: very limited and often organised as stacked parking.
What to bring and what to check before entering
The Hollywood Bowl allows visitors to bring their own food to events. Bags, baskets and coolers must nevertheless fit beneath the seat or inside the box area and must not exceed dimensions of 15 x 15 x 22 inches. The same maximum dimensions apply to bags, which do not have to be transparent.
The list of prohibited items includes, among other things, cameras with interchangeable or extended lenses, monopods, selfie sticks, separate audio or video recording devices, GoPro cameras, drones, laser pointers, tablets, laptops, chairs and umbrellas. The venue does not provide storage for prohibited items, so it is more practical to check your bag before leaving.
For this concert, it is useful to allow enough time to arrive in Hollywood, enter the complex and find your seat. Traffic in Los Angeles can significantly extend the final part of the journey, and the Bowl fills through a limited number of access routes. If the aim is to hear The Temper Trap and Portugal. The Man, arriving at the last moment before 19:00 is not a good plan.
What kind of concert experience to expect
Muse is a band whose live reputation is based on a combination of highly precise playing and a theatrical sense of scale. The current tour continues that approach. Recent sets move through material from several eras and build the evening around sudden changes of energy: a bass introduction can move into a massive guitar chorus, an electronic interlude into an older rock single, and a newer song into one of the band's biggest hits.
The best indicator of the atmosphere is not an assumed setlist but what has already been recurring on the tour: Hysteria and Supermassive Black Hole bring the familiar tension of bass and guitar, Uprising and Knights of Cydonia function as major collective audience moments, while Cryogen, Hexagons and Unravelling confirm that the new album is not merely a studio addition.
The Hollywood Bowl adds a sense of scale that is difficult to reproduce in an enclosed venue. When darkness falls, the shell-shaped stage becomes the visual centre of the amphitheatre, with thousands of people arranged in ascending rows around it. For Muse, whose concerts are built on contrasts of light, silence, synthesizers and explosive riffs, this geometry of the space naturally intensifies the drama of the performance.
Ticket sales for this event are underway.
A practical plan for the concert evening
If you are coming from another part of Los Angeles or from outside the city, the most reliable plan is to organise transport before the day of the concert. The Metro and shuttle reduce the risk of searching for parking near the amphitheatre, while rideshare services have a designated zone in Lot C. Visitors who nevertheless arrive by car should expect limited space and a slower exit because of the way vehicles are parked.
For the evening itself, it is useful to bring only what genuinely needs to fit under the seat, check the bag rules and arrive early enough that the support acts do not become music you hear while you are still approaching the entrance. The Hollywood Bowl is a large venue, and moving from the entrance to the upper sections takes longer than in a smaller hall.
Muse rotates part of its repertoire on tour, so setlists from previous concerts serve as an indication of the band's current form, not as a promise for Los Angeles. That is precisely one of the more interesting reasons to attend the final night of the North American leg of the tour: the structure of the band's current phase is known, but the final song selection for the Hollywood Bowl remains open until the performance itself.
Sources:
Muse - tour page with the date and location of the Hollywood Bowl performance.
Warner Records - announcement of The Wow! Signal album, release date, tenth studio album and the single Be With You.
setlist.fm - current tour schedule, announced performers for the Hollywood Bowl and repertoires from performances during July and August 2026.
LA Phil / Hollywood Bowl - venue capacity, history, sound system information, address, public transport, parking, recommended arrival time and entry rules.
The Guardian - critical context for the sound and production of The Wow! Signal album.
Discover Los Angeles - event date, start time and location.
AllMusic - basic band profile and members' roles.