Concert Details:
Bands: 30 Seconds to Mars
Location: Sixth and I, Washington, DC
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| Jared Leto |
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| Elliot of Elliot in the Morning |
- Birth
- Conquistador
- Kings and Queens
- This is War
- Night of the Hunter
- Search and Destroy
- Do or Die
- From Yesterday (Acoustic)
- Northern Lights (Acoustic)
- Alibi (Acoustic)
- The Kill (Bury Me) (Acoustic)
Encore:
12. Closer to the Edge
13. Up in the Air
This was a special show. The only way to be able to go to the show was to win tickets on the radio or by preordering the album during certain times and having them choose your name. If you had asked me at the beginning of the year what the number one band that I wanted to see live was is 30 Seconds to Mars. This was a great show, although not the type of show I would have preferred, but it was free and I still had a great time.
I'll start what I consider to be the deficiencies out of the way initially. 30 Seconds to Mars, to their credit is a loud and energetic band who throws a wall of sound at you. Sixth and I, which is an old synagogue, is a good venue, and I've been there for great shows that sounded amazing, but in some ways, 30 Seconds to Mars is a band whose sound was to big for the set up. The other problem was for me, what is one of the two rudest things I have encountered at a concert this year. A woman thought it was appropriate to stand up on the pews thus blocking the view completely of everyone behind her and was offended when we asked her to step down so that us, and the people behind us could see.
There were three parts to this show. The first was a preview of the 30 Seconds to Mars documentary Archive, the second a playing of their music video for Up in the Air and the third was the show itself. The documentary preview was interesting as was the music video, but it made the crowd very antsy for the show itself.
The show started slow with the intro song from the new album, a strong intro choice although not the best because it was not known by the crowd. From their they dropped into another song of the newest album, although this one had been released and was a good song because it has a part that is designed for crowd interaction.
Then it was on to, Kings and Queens my favorite 30 Seconds to Mars song, whose line "In defense of our dreams" will be my next tattoo. This song highlights the strength of their shows, the fans. The fans know every line of every (released) song more than any other show I've been to, although this show may have been an exception as you had to really be a fan to get tickets. A song like Kings and Queens needs fans to be singing for it to work, and they really sang along, although a bit drowned out by the sound quality.
From there, they move to another song that requires the crowd to really be into the show, This is War, a song that is as described by its title a declaration of war, although not every clearly explained who the war is against, but I don't think it's a physical war as much as a musical or emotional one. Like Kings and Queens, the success of this song live was that the crowd was into the song as much if not more than the band.
This is War was followed by another two old songs before the third song from the new album, Do or Die. By this point in the show a new unknown song was welcome and the crowd roared its appreciation. It worked better as a unknown song later in the show than the previous ones because it was able to ride the energy of the crowd instead of having to develop it.
From there they moved on to a few acoustic songs including songs of their second album From Yesterday and The Kill although with as well as a new song and a song off of the previous album although he didn't play all of From Yesterday. I felt it was the weakest part of the show, not because of the band, because it seemed to me like a lot of fans didn't know songs from the early album and had only become fans through This is War. Overall, it was an effective cool down for the first part of the show and a good set up for the encore.
They started the encore with their most uplifting and crowd interaction based song Closer to the Edge, the music video for which is actually compiled from various live shows. The climax of the song has a part where the crowd shouts with Jared Leto "no no no no" while raising their fists in the air in defiance of whatever you are fighting against. It's a powerful song that would work well anywhere in the show but worked well as the encore song so that the crowd is immediately picked up. From their, they dropped into their most recent single Up in the Air which unfortunately for me, felt like a weak closing song as we had just watched the music video for the song beforehand. Either way, it did not fall flat.
Overall the show was good, but because of the size of the venue and the sound quality, it is not what i was hoping for out of my first 30 Seconds to Mars show, but still it was a good show and it is a band I will be seeing again, hopefully in September if the logistics work out.
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