Many alt-rock bands flounder confronted with the vastness of a stadium: more used to college venues, subtle nuances of their music are lost. This was never likely to be a problem for Muse. Their roots are in indie music, as proven by an audience heavy on teenage girls who seem to have applied their eye make-up in the dark while wearing mittens. But their ambition was always overarching: by their second album, 2001's Origins of Symmetry, Muse were gamely attempting to cross-breed post-Radiohead guitar rock with the cod-operatic pretensions of mid-70s Queen.

The result is determinedly epic music which fills Wembley Arena at a stroke. Their opening number, Apocalypse Please, sounds like most bands' grand finale. It features the sort of vast, crashing piano chords that announce the death of the villain in a particularly camp Hammer horror film, thunderous, portentous drums and a vocal that varies drastically in its pitch, but never in its tone: whether Matt Bellamy is essaying a gravelly roar or an eyebrow-raising falsetto, he invariably sounds as if he is on the verge of a histrionic fit. You want to tell them to calm down, that it's not the end of the world. But, according to Muse, it is. "This is the ENNNNNNND!" shrieks Bellamy, as the song reaches its chorus, "of the WOOOOOOOOOORLD!"

It is difficult to see how Muse are going to follow that without wheeling cannons onstage and launching into a rendition of the 1812 Overture, but, remarkably, they manage it. Every song operates on the same hysterical level, packed to the brim with frantic keyboard arpeggios, wailing vocals, rumbling basslines and titles like Space Dementia and Thoughts of a Dying Atheist.

Dyed hair fluttering in the wind machine, Bellamy has the onstage behaviour to match. His keyboard is atop a ridiculous metal podium, which lights up as he strikes the keys. A fantastic guitarist, he is incapable of performing a solo without dropping to his knees, throwing back his head, turning his guitar sideways against his crotch and thrusting its neck priapically towards the audience.

They lap it up, waving cigarette lighters in the quiet sections, punching the air and clapping in unison - and you can see their point. On one level, what Muse do is entirely ridiculous, but it is pulled off with such panache and wilful disregard for commonly held notions of taste and subtlety that it is impossible not to be impressed.

· Muse play Nottingham Arena (0115-853 3000) tonight, then tour.