A Million Little Pieces

I went to see Thirty Seconds to Mars last weekend. I know I know... what to think of that. A friend of mine had an extra ticket that I bought off of her & joined them for dinner & the concert. It was a pretty fun time & maybe for the first time I thought wow, this must be what it is like to go to a popular rock show or maybe it was more like what I imagined going to one would be like when I was a teenager. I have definitely been to see popular bands before but this had a different feeling to it. Maybe it was all the screaming girls. Maybe not. Their fans straight up remind me of Jimmy Buffett fans. Like Parrotheads are to Jimmy Buffett what The Echelon are to 30 STM. They're all completely dedicated to the cause. The concert was fun to watch even from way in the back. Jared Leto really spent a lot of energy pumping up the crowd & you can really tell he likes being a performer. I think he's a pretty good singer but the first few songs didn't sound as great due to him being sick. One of the only complaints my friend & I seemed to have was that he stopped singing the lyrics a lot, getting the crowd to sing. That worked sometimes but a lot of times it didn't. I wish he would tone that down. I also wish they would have continuously played a few songs in a row. They seemed to stop a lot, which is fine, but with a 11 o'clock curfew at the Greek, we lost out a little bit & I think it really keeps the crowd excited if you keep that energy going.

I have some opinions on the band itself. The whole Echelon thing is a strange phenomenon. It's kind of interesting & kind of, at the heart of it, just one gigantic street team. The band seems to be really concerned with marketing & encouraging kids to get the word out, etc etc... which I don't fully agree with and maybe that's why they seem to get some flack. Are they just pushing too hard? But it's kind of an amazing feat to create such a huge fan base. Of course I can understand marketing your band, and hell I'm sure after all the label troubles this band has had it's quite a crafty way to do it. On the other hand, it's pretty awesome how interactive they are with their fans. Now if only they'll encourage them not to just go out & hang up some posters around town, but to do some charitable work. It seems a few of them have already caught onto that by participating in Habitat for Humanity. Now can you imagine how much influence could be spread if the band pushed as hard for them to do positive things in their communities?

Anyways I taped the song Search and Destroy, during which Jared Leto stops the band & rallies the crowd before going back into the song. It's pretty cute.