30 Seconds to Mars, Wembley Arena, February 23rd

30 Seconds to Mars played Wembley Arena on February 23rd

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Tuesday, 02, Mar 2010 03:35

Actors' musical side projects have tended to have two things in common - lack of mainstream success and, well, rubbishness. The less said about the meathead rock of Russell Crowe's Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts the better while the defining moment for Keanu Reeve's grunge outfit Dogstar came as they were pelted by a Glastonbury.

So the enduring success of Jared Leto's 30 Seconds to Mars, especially as their stadium-sized rock is good enough that the cynical can't just relate the band's popularity to the prettiness of their frontman, remains remarkable. At a dramatic and passionate Wembley Arena show as part of their Into the Wild live tour, 30 Seconds confirm they have the ability to back up Leto's unsurprising confidence.

After the derivative but meaty pop-punk of LA's Street Drum Corps and a pre-show huddle visible to the reviewers in situ, 30 Seconds' entrance is undeniably camp but never ridiculous. With five drummers pounding the beat of This Is War and a showy curtain drop as Leto stands centre stage with a flag held high above his head, the screams of the audience (a 60-40 split between girls and boys) are predictable but deserved. The mohawked Leto - he later refers to himself as "the guy with the fucked up hairdo" - is superbly amplified and his soaring vocals aren't lost in the cavernous arena as he powers through recent effort Night of the Hunter and fan favourite Beautiful Lie.

"I'll come up there," he growls at the still-sitting audience members though the threat's difficult to take seriously when uttered by a slight prettyboy who changes his onstage outfit at least three times. But his showmanship is second to none, orchestrating commendable audience participation and seeming almost genuine as he embarks on the standard "we're so humble" spiel trotted out by visiting US bands.

The pop-political visuals for Vox Populi, a hair-raising singalong, confirm there's brain behind the brawn of 30 Seconds' skyscraper-sized anthems and it's only the misstep of two mid-crowd performances - with no screens, 90 per cent of the crowd are left staring at the backs of heads - that stops this impassioned and professional performance from being an overwhelming success.