William Blake, who knew a bit about fantastical entertainment, said that the fool who persists in his folly shall become wise. This aphorism could be the official motto of Muse, who over the course of the last decade have gradually but determinedly become the most magnificently preposterous band on the planet.

This weekend saw the power-rock trio prepare for their autumn tour of sold-out enormo-domes with two open-air shows on the seafront in their Devon hometown. Frontman Matt Bellamy is now resident on Lake Como, but his homecoming clearly meant a lot: "It's wonderful to be here again," he told the crowd, his voice cracking as he gestured towards Teignmouth's quaint old pier. "We used to spend all our time hanging out there."

The band are promoting their imminent fifth studio album, The Resistance, a record that sees them take their flamboyant, baroque rock configurations to ever greater heights. Its grand musical audacity is typified by the show opener and lead single, Uprising, an extravagantly overwrought electro- stomp that suggested 1970s glam rock troupers the Sweet mounting an assault on the theme from Dr Who.

The Resistance is a concept album of sorts, and its overriding themes of societal repression and alien interventions have given Bellamy the chance to hone his personal neuroses and trademark conspiracy theories to the nth degree. Typical is the album's title track, a grandiose symphony of orchestral Queen-like bombast complete with Bohemian Rhapsody-style layered backing vocals: live, its lavish, camp sci-fi melodrama suggested Freddie Mercury attempting Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.

The Teignmouth gigs lacked the lasers, pyrotechnics and dancers suspended from balloons that traditionally make Muse shows such outrageous spectacles, but Bellamy didn't jettison any of his wild-eyed intensity. New track United States of Eurasia could be a piece of schlock from the We Will Rock You musical, were it not saved by its gleeful sense of its own absurdity, while the gymnastic riffing and proto-metal rush of Unnatural Selection were thrilling. By contrast, the reflective Undisclosed Desires evoked Violator-era Depeche Mode.

There is no other band extant doing anything like Muse, which makes them all the more laudable. As they encored with Knights of Cydonia, possibly the only song ever to sound simultaneously like both King Crimson and Metallica, the grateful residents of Teignmouth hailed an intoxicating truth: the local-boys-done-good are now so ridiculous that they have become sublime.

Ian Gittins

At Sheffield Arena on 4 November. Box office: 0114 256 5656. Then touring.