30 Seconds To Mars at Belsonic Festival 2011
Review: David Dooley
Photos: Aidan McCarthy
It’s on a cool, breezy evening that Goldenplec decent on Belfast’s city centre for the first of a host of Belsonic 2011 gigs. Arriving at the Custom House Square I was defiantly taken aback that they were able to squeeze a 6,000 person venue into the middle of a major city.
Initiating tonight’s collection of acts are Lisburn natives “Ram’s Pocket Radio” fresh from a slot at this year’s Glastonbury festival these guys are defiantly making friends in the right places! Easing their way into their set with their mid tempo pop rock they spend the first half of their set trying to get any real reaction from the crowd. Not an easy feat as we’re all here for one reason really. ‘Love Is A Bitter Thing’ gains the band the first real reaction from the attendees giving their set a well needed injection of energy, they certainly would have made a better impression if it opened their set. Another highlight is the chugging power-chord led ‘1 + 2’ with some great off kilter drums that make it more than your standard pop rock song. Some of the blame for a slightly flawed performance has to be taken from the size of the venue; the sound wasn’t working for them and their songs aren’t big enough for a venue this size yet but imagine they’d be a treat in a more intimate venue.
By no means my standard musical cup of tea “You Me At Six” emerge and instantly bring all of the energy that ‘Ram’s Pocket Radio’ lacked. Opening with ‘Consequence’ they are certainly getting straight down to business. ‘Kiss and Tell’ gets a fair chunk of the crowd fist pumping along to frontman’s Franceschi chanting “I know you don’t need to tell me” which is defiantly hitting home with the overall teenage demographic tonight in Belfast.
Throughout the set You Me At Six keep up the relentless energy with the Belsonic crowd eating out of the palm of their hands, whether it be the sing along instructions for “Liquid Confidence” or the instant circle pit formations a little later on in the set.
Now onto tonight’s main event, 30 Seconds to Mars. Before they emerged I had a vague idea of what to expect from them as a live band; from word of mouth I’d heard great things but with the huge production but into their albums I was also skeptical about how that would come across live.
Shannon Leto and Tomo Mili?evi? emerge to a pitch black stage and kick things off with a massive tribal tom that meanders into ‘Escape’. A silhouetted Jared Leto unfolds to the delight of every female fan in the place. “A Beautiful Lie” is a full assault on your senses in the best possible way, from the huge LED screen at the back of the stage playing some beautifully shot clips from their Arctic Circle video shoot in Greenland to the songs driving rhythms. The huge array of lights ensure the bank are almost entirely backlit which makes for a very dramatic entrance but gets a bit overbearing when trying to see properly what’s happening on stage. The stage has been arranged with the drum kit over on the right hand side to give Leto and his band all the room they need to run around and spin in circles, of which Leto does; a lot.
Search and Destroy is accompanied by some very slick typographic visuals at the back turning the event into a very slick karaoke. Half way through the song Leto halts the song on a whim; albeit a very well rehearsed one; to point out a teenage male in the audience with a sign stating “I’m pregnant”, oh the troubles of being young, male and pregnant! With this Leto insists the kid comes up on stage for a uterus examination. Realising he’s not a doctor he chooses to just continue the song alongside some cringe inducing dancing from the teenager who’s clearly having the time of his life.
“This Is War” carries on the sing along with the screen following the narrative of the song with short clips outlining the characters in war. Everyone from Gandi to George Bush make an appearance. The bridge sees the release of two dozen huge beach balls that don’t make it too far through the crowd yet somehow seem to jump the gate to the porch of the Custom House.
After two thirds of the gig being a fairly full fire sonic assault the acoustic section makes a welcome change of pace. Instrumental ‘L490’ comes across as long and pointless, and I doubt I’m alone when I say I’d rather an extra ‘proper’ song replace it, especially as their self titles debut is completely underrepresented. When Leto does return for an acoustic rendition of “Hurricane” he’s greeted once more with rapturous applause and treats us to a great sing along.
The singalong continues for ‘Alibi’ with Leto pulling the 21st century equivalent of the hold ‘your lighters up for the singalong’ trick, only to bring it up to speed he requests lighters and phones but gets a mixture of them with some cameras and the odd glowstick thrown in for good measure.
The second instance of an eager fan being pulled from the crowd now occurs with Leto taking a local boy from the crowd and has him teach some of the local lingo. Quite entertaining to see someone from a handful of hit movies trying to say ‘What about ya’ in a quite dreadful Northern impression but good natured all the same.
Sing along hit of the night goes to the next song ‘The Kill’, their 2006 mega hit that brought the band to a major audience. At first I was a bit skeptical about having it be an acoustic version but with the lyrics being a bit hot or miss with the sing alongs so far it was great to see each of the 6,000 attendees knew the words making ‘The Kill’ it a standout.
My personal favorite was up next, the synth rock ‘Night of the Hunter’ with Leto preceding the song with a demand to turn the centre of Belfast into a rave. What a lovely suggestion Jared. What then happened I don’t think I’ll ever be completely sure. The song kicked off great with it’s tribal drum intro but when the guitar came in something was off. I say guitarist Mili?evi? hit the wrong pedal but my gig going companion insists that the guitar was out of tune. We agreed to disagree but I doubt we were the only ones to notice this. In reaction Leto pulling one of his trademark ‘You guys ain’t dancing enough’ and pulls the song to a hault, well played Sir, I think you may have gotten yourself out of that situation quite nicely. Second time goes down an absolute charm with the place going completely nuts.
The crowd interaction is defiantly one of Leto’s very commendable qualities, his banter with the audience puts nearly every other act to shame. With this gig taking place in the middle of a major city it’s no surprise when you see people on their balconies enjoying a free gig, a fair price for the noise disruption they have during the week of Belsonic gigs. What they didn’t think would happen would have light hearted threats made to the contents of their fridge. Once Leto sees that these people are trying to enjoy a free gig he takes it upon himself to invite the entire venue back to their place for an after party, a promising invitation as we all know where they live!
‘Closer to the Edge’ is started with Leto brandishing a white flag with their triad symbol on it. The security guys surely have had a heart attack at this next part as Leto ushered half the crowd to get on the shoulders of the other half. It kind of worked and was a very impressive display of lack of personal safety making the average height of the crowd now at least 10 feet. Continuing to the lack of concern for safety, this time his own, Leto plays up to the eager crowd on the front barrier, a crowd that would probably (unintentionally) tear him to pieces with admiration if given the chance.
The encore consisted of the lead single from their last album ‘This Is War’ with ‘Kings and Queens’. For this final song Leto hand picks no less than twenty very wiling members of the audience to join him on stage and spots a girl in the middle of a cleared circle that’s now about to become a large mosh pit and advises her to get out as it’s not a dance club and she may well get hurt.
What a great note to end on; 6,000 people leading the arena sized chant in the opening bars of the song. The unity of the song lets the gig end on a fantastic note. Peaking with the final chorus chant “We are the kings, We are the queens”. The crowd leave as a single unit of 6,000 people instead of 6,000 individual who were untied at tonight’s 30 Seconds to Mars Belsonic 2011 gig