[DISCLAIMER: 2006 was a crazy year, by anyone's standards. We listened to a lot of music, saw a lot of bands, and drank a lot of booze. Subsequently, some of rock 'n' roll documentation was lost in the fray. Here are some long lost reviews, photos and good times that should have seen the light of day.]
TEXT AND PHOTOS: ABBEY BRADEN
The air was thick with watermelon lip smacker and sloshed malibu rum, rivaled only by the anticipation of the crowd at Roseland Ballroom. The front row stacked tweens and "cool" moms on top of each other as they waited for 30 Seconds to Mars to hit the stage. I lived through their epic Lolla set last summer in Chicago, ducking roses, CDs, and boxes of popsicles flung into the adoring crowd by lead singer Jared Leto. Oh, and he had scaled the entire scaffolding of the stage too-- needless to say I was expecting nothing short of Ricky's Christmas miracle this time around in the spirit of a true American Arena Screamo gig.
So the band storms the stage, clad in masks and what appeared to be massive amounts of Diesel. Red, white and black banners unfurl, recalling rallies of days past, and they came out waving their own flag. The logo was everywhere, down to the guitar picks. The guys rip into some upbeat symphonic rock and all hell brakes loose in the crowd. Kids, literally children, like, girls dressed in Limited Too and friendship bracelets, start hurling over the barrier with the crazed frozen fan look in their eyes. Several duck amongst the photographers in the pit, which wasn't wide enough for both us and the bouncers. As we were helplessly gridlocked as security tried to fish out the stragglers, Leto lunges over our heads and into the sea of bodies for the first of several attemps for people to support his weight. This left the band responsible for keeping us entertained sans lead singer, and the swollen orchestrations stretched on.
Now, I've gotten to the point where a large part of my enjoyment of a show has to do with the crowd, but Leto's interactions with his audience raised more questions that answers. On one hand, what kind of grown man stage-dives into a crowd of 14-year-old girls? But on the other hand, he potentially has the coolest fucking guitar of all time. Does "Pegasus" outrank bodily harm? Sure, why not. I have more pressing matters to attend to--anyone know where I could track down some friendship bracelets?
