30 Seconds to Mars stun the O2 with a fantastic live performance

Thirty Seconds to Mars played the O2 on Friday 26 February, supported by home-grown Dublin band Fox Avenue.

They warmed up the crowd with their soft-rock sound easing the audience into the heavier, unusual sound of LA band Street Drum Corps, further raising the anticipation of eager fans to hear Jared Leto’s piercing voice cut through them.

Thirty Seconds to Mars emerged onto the stage from behind a large curtain with the opening chant of Escape and Night of the Hunter playing as it fell to the ground revealing masked men waving large flags to the haunting anthems.

Relying very little on special or visual effects except lighting and the use of their music videos on screens in the background of the stage, the band delivered an excellent live performance, proving that Jared Leto can sing just as well live as he can in the studio.

This was highlighted when he surprisingly ventured into the audience after giving out to security for telling those in the seated areas to sit down during the show stating, ‘I told you I would come up here’, taking requests and playing acoustic versions of Capricorn, Was it a Dream? and A Modern Myth.

Halfway through the set Leto memorably stopped during This is War telling security, yet again, to ‘let the people do what the people want to do’ and refusing to continue until they had left one of the many mosh pits to let the fans go crazy.

Overall it was a great experience, and although I was surprised and somewhat disappointed that such a big LA band didn’t use larger effects as I would have expected them to which may have brought their rating up that little bit more, as would the addition of a few more songs to the set list, it was a pleasant surprise to see that they were such a strong live band, which is probably why they didn’t feel the need to rely on anything but talent.