14. Jack White
The Magical X-Factor
It's Jack White. Incendiary guitarist, raucous singer, brilliant songwriter; Jack White has been responsible for some of the most exciting music of the 21st century. White Stripes shows - with the fiery alchemy and minimalist powerhouse drumming of Meg White - are the stuff of legend. But if you go and see him now, not only do you get alive and amplified new arrangements of White Stripes classics, you also get the best songs from his Dead Weather and Raconteurs projects not to mention material from his stunning solo debut. You could call it value for money, or you could call it a chance to kiss the hem of one of the most reliably brilliant musical minds of the past decade but in either case you'll get nothing less than an enriching night of wall-to-wall excellent songs, all killer, no filler. These days, White tours with two backing bands one all male, one all female. He apparently decides which band he's going to use that day over breakfast. This adds an unpredictable edge to proceedings, as each band plays with a different set of dynamics and chemistry. That, combined with White's open attitude to setlists, means that he's the sort of artist you could follow for every date of a tour and never see anything close to the same show twice.
13. Muse
The Magical X-Factor Spectacle. Muse take all the pomp and excess of their seventies prog-rock predecessors and multiply it by a considerable amount; coming across as a demented mutation of Queen, Pink Floyd, Rush and Wagner; with a bit of Depeche Mode and Circque Du Soleil thrown in for good measure. Because why not? The moment their budgets matched their ambition, Muse began to assault their audiences with lasers; fire; smoke; inverted pyramids; flying saucers; satellite arrays and, on the Resistance tour, three giant mechanised towers. Each tour appears to up the ante on the ridiculous front, and reportedly the only reason they didn't descend upon the stage via jetpack during the HAARP shows was because health and safety wouldn't allow it. But all of this would be superfluous were it not backed by serious musical chops. Muse are an intricate power trio who could no doubt demand the rapt attention of a stadium even without the showmanship. Long-term fans tend to complain that their setlists are a bit predictable these days, but in actuality they appear to have been carefully honed to deliver the perfect balance between light and shade; quiet and loud; with so many crowd-pleasers that Muse are definitely up there with the greatest stadium acts in history. And, with their tendency to weave familiar hard-rock riffs amongst their own material, Muse also do a great job in placing themselves amongst the upper echelons of the rock pantheon, too.