Oxegen 2010 - 30 Seconds to Mars
Vodaphone Stage, Sunday 11th July, 8.20pm
Describe in a Tweet: Buck Rodgers acts out the rock star
What happened: Hitting the stage with a massive bleached mohawk, a blue leather jacket and bright red gloves, ATL was gobsmacked to see that Jared Leto's new look left him looking like a cross between Buck Rodgers and Johnny Rotten.
After the initial shock, we tried to embrace the four-piece that are 30 Seconds to Mars, but found it hard not to be grated down by Leto's obvious theatrics. As well as ordering the crowd to "go crazy!" "scream as hard as you can!" and "jump Ireland, jump!". With banalities being thrown left, right and centre for effect, it felt like the actor was just doing his rock star act, leaving little room for musical authenticity. In spite of such apprehension, the fans certainly lapped up Leto's rhetoric and 'Night of the Hunter' got plenty of revellers jumping and up down wildly.
Singing into the face of a crowd surfer who had reached the stage, and wearing a pair of heart sunglasses, Leto sang 'Closer to the Edge' accompanied by his brother - replete with studs and eyeliner, and banging furiously on the drums. Conducting cheers from the fans from different areas of the crowd and getting two mosh pits to merge into one, Leto definitely knows how to work the crowd. However, he was constantly stopping songs midway to shout "lose your minds!", "you ****ing psychos!" and the like, as well as stretching eight songs over a one-hour set, making us question how much material the band actually has.
Crazy in Love: Getting members of the crowd onstage for the final song 'Kings and Queens' was a really special, unifying experience and showed the importance of the fans to the band.
99 Problems: Leto's rock star theatrics were topped off by him saying "we'll never forget this day for as long as we live!" Maybe best not, eh Jared?
Oxegen Rating: 5/10
Comment number 1.
At 12:03 19th Jul 2010, ClaireBoothby wrote:30 Seconds to Mars have loads of material, in fact they are one of the only bands that produces albums where all the songs are first class. As for Jared Leto acting the rock star, that is more than a little harsh and quite cynical, he wrote all but one song on the new album, and Shannon the other and you can tell the songs mean so much to him and the whole band. In fact I couldn't feel more differently,the band puts 100% into every live show, they couldn't be more in the moment.The so called 'theatrics'doesn't take away form the authenticity of the music but it makes the whole show so much fun. They are such a great live band because they go for it, they want people to go crazy, they want a good atmosphere, they make you want to jump,mosh, go wild!Also, I can't believe Jared is being slated for ending with a nice line. Lastly, what do you mean by four-piece as 30 Seconds to Mars has 3 members, Jared, Shannon and Tomo.
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At 15:48 25th Jul 2010, U14564209 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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