30 Seconds to Mars @ ChallengeStadium, Perth (24/07/10)

Mon 26th Jul, 2010 in Gig Reviews

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So the Perth emo faithful came out of the shadows, dressed in their best cardigans and sporting their shiniest off-centre lip piercings, they were set for a night of world famous tunes and old fashioned rock and roll. Unfortunately they went to Challenge Stadium instead of On The Bright Side.

Kicking off were Newtown cum Los Angeles based rock act The Art, with more hair than a care bear they mused through quite a tasty little set that had the kids in front wiping away the sweaty eye liner. Finishing off the set with a pass to one of their (no doubt,) major influences; Lily Allen with a rocking rendition of The Fear, The Art will likely become indie darlings in the near future; keep an eye out.

With a huge puff of smoke and an epic drum intro, the wailings of Jared Leto could be heard all around the basketball court, oops, Challenge Stadium, and then in the blink of an eye, the spotlights shone bright and 30 Seconds To Mars had arrived.

Leto was hard to take your eyes off, he looked like a spinning top, with a Shirley Manson-esque blonde mohawk, for a while there it seemed as if he had forgotten which city he was playing, -he kept proclaiming “Its great to be back here Australia”.

What the songs lack in substance is more than compensated by their live show, half of the concert was taken up by Leto interacting with the crowd, even inciting a circle mosh for album number three title track This Is War. Runaway was the first song to kick back to A Beautiful Lie, before the stage lights dropped, and all of a sudden Leto appeared in the spotlight, but at the sound table fifty metres back from the stage.

Credit where credit’s due: there was showmanship aplenty. It wasn’t about the people at the front, he really did care what everyone in the stadium was feeling. The disappointing part was that we were only served partial slices of acoustic renditions of From Yesterday and The Kill.

The front man made a beeline back to the stage, through an overzealous crowd, one naughty, naughty emo pulled on the Leto’s mo-hawk, but the main man pushed on unfazed.

Rounding out the show, 30 Seconds to Mars were joined on stage by half the crowd for a rousing rendition of Kings And Queens. They put on a good show, took good care of their fans and left us all with a smile in our hearts, they just loved us “Australians” so much.

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