Big Day Out’s leading men Muse always bring an elaborate live rig with them, and next January should be no exception. Fresh from a three-week American circuit supporting U2, the trio has kicked off its arena run across the UK – and they’re not thinking small.

“We’ve got the biggest production we’ve ever gone out with,” bassist Chris Wolstenholme boasted to the Birmingham Mail this week. “It’s our most ambitious stage show ever. It’s on the edge of being too big for arenas. It would work really well in a stadium.”

The satellite dishes and spacecrafts of previous tours have now been replaced by a stage set inspired by theatre, in which the band plays on three moving buildings.

“Sometimes we’re on top of the buildings 12 or 13 feet in the air; it looks pretty spectacular,” the bassist continued. “We still want it to be a rock show and you don’t want it to feel too contrived or limited, but it would be nice to incorporate some of the ideas that go into opera and theatre and somehow mould the two together.”

Opera at Big Day Out? We’ll soon see.