"THE KINGS & QUEENS"
31.7.2011
Once again, Wanting to give myself plenty of time to get ready, I got home around 3 hours before I had to leave for the show but again, in my twittering and fussing around, I ended up in a frantic rush with about 45 minutes to go and once again ended up missing my desired leave time by about 15 minutes.
I ended up getting to the venue about half an hour early, but unlike in Hong Kong, there was nobody else around who was clearly there to see Mars. I went for a bit of a walk into the shopping centre but came back outside after about 5 minutes. I spotted a couple of girls standing outside, one of them wearing a 30 Seconds To Mars t-shirt. “Great!” I thought, so I proceeded to walk over and introduce myself. The girls were from Japan and had travelled to see them.
Today I was on a bit of a mission. Mars had asked me to gather email addresses for the Transmission mailing list. I happily obliged and it was actually quite fun to get chatting to everyone. The funniest thing I remember is that this time last year I was attending psychology because of my social anxiety and being forced to, sorry, reluctantly “willing” to do this sort of thing on a much smaller scale to try and push me out of my shyness. I had a little giggle to myself as I thought “wow, if my psychologist could see me now!”.
I chatted to the girls for a while before other people wearing Mars shirts started turning up. I wandered around getting emails and somehow becoming a bit of a tourist attraction myself… I forget how many people said “can we take a photo with you?” I assume it was the blonde hair, Aussie accent and my shirt that everyone seemed to be finding hilarious. Leto Sandwich anyone?
At around 8pm I went to the Golden Tickets meeting area to find Sarah and get my wristband. What I didn’t know was that for this gig I also got free drinks! Ok, I’m not going to say no to that! We disbanded again for a while so I headed off to get more emails.
We met back at our meeting spot at about 8:45pm and were taken around the side of the building to the bands entrance (well don’t I feel special!?) There were only 6 of us, Sarah and another cool chick who was helping organize us and as the doors to the lift open I gasped. The walls had been completely plastered in 30 Seconds To Mars posters! “OMG, I’m so going to try and get one of these after the show” I said to Sarah. Her response? "You better be quick!" We arrived backstage and showed our wristbands and were taken into the venue. My first reaction was “WOW! THIS IS TINY!”. I could see the boys’ equipment set up on stage and boy was I excited. “I’m going to be standing up there in an hour and Mars are going to be SO CLOSE!!”
I went to the bar and grabbed some Red Bull & Vodka’s (not that I needed any more bloody stimulants, I was already over-excited as it was) but I threw them back within a couple of minutes and hung out on the raised side areas of the room. It wasn’t long before the general public came flooding through the doors… I was happy to be standing up top away from the rush to be honest. With more people through the doors, I started going around asking people for their emails again. I ended up getting just under 100 emails so I was pretty happy with my efforts.
Just before 9pm, Sarah took the 4 of us who were doing the “Side of Stage” position and led us past the barrier and into a waiting spot. Everyone was staring, I imagine wondering how on earth we’d managed to score such a great spot. Little did they know, we weren’t just standing there, we were going ON THE STAGE! Ahhhhh! After a short wait, we walked under the black curtain, under another black curtain and then TA-DAH! I’m on stage. There was a tiny little square marked out on the floor in glow in the dark tape, just big enough for the 4 of us to stand in, that we had to stay inside for the show.
I looked out at the crowd and thought “OH MY GOD!” then I realised the keyboard and guitar right in front of us was Tomo’s gear. “OH MY GOD” I thought again. I couldn’t stop smiling. I was SO close. Sarah informed us that we had to stand out of the way of the areas to the side because the band had to come on stage through the curtains. “OH MY GOD” I thought AGAIN. The show hadn’t even begun but I was already having the time of my life.
It wasn’t long before the room went dark. Everyone screamed and I saw Shannon come on stage and start drumming ‘Escape’. Even though Shannon was the furthest from us, he was still so close. I was smiling like a dork when Tomo came through the curtain to my right. He said a quick hello to us then got into position. As Jared started singing, the crowd erupted and even though it was pitch black, I could see him as he walked on stage. I remember leaning over to Michela who was beside me and saying “Get ready!” This was easily my favourite part of both shows. That initial “THIS IS WAR” where the lights flash and Mars are on stage in front of you is indescribable, but this time it was something else. This was the single most exciting moment of my whole entire life. There was a pause after Escape where I saw Jared slip a guitar over himself and then the band broke into A Beautiful Lie. The lights were flashing, the guys were all going nuts and Jared was spinning around as he often does. I was past a point of happiness, a point of excitement, a point of even believing what was happening in front of my eyes. I could have touched Tomo at any given point and the fact that there was nothing separating me and the guys was unbelievable. To try and describe the emotions and feeling I felt at that moment is completely impossible and one I’m sure only others who have been in the same position on such a small stage with the guys could truly appreciate.
During the show, Tomo came over to the 4 of us who were at the side of stage and sang to us, played for us and generally just grooved with us. He also stuck his tongue out at me 2 or 3 times haha. Jared kind of acknowledged us a couple of times as well.
Attack, Search & Destroy and This Is War were next in the setlist.
During This is War, someone in the front row hit one of the big red balls forward and it hit Jared’s mic stand causing the microphone to fly back and hit him in the mouth. It wasn’t a little hit either, his sunglasses actually almost bounced right off his face. As it was right at the end of the song, the lights went down literally 2 seconds after it happened and as they went down, he grabbed his mic and walked toward the person who hit it. I’m not sure what happened but I can’t imagine he was too happy about it. To make matters worse, as the lights came back on for Jared to sing 100 Suns, he began singing and the backing guitarist was fiddling with his guitar behind him. I’m guessing he was having technical issues. Jared appeared to be really angry and after singing one line said “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.” He grabbed his mic and the lights and music completely shut off. I was actually a little worried, I thought maybe it was rude to keep videoing while he was angry. It was dark though so although I saw what happened, you can’t see or hear anything on the video. Of course, Jay being the professional he is, after a minute or so, he said “Ok turn up the lights, I wanna see these people” and talked to the crowd. Good on him for not letting it affect him too much, I’m assuming that would be VERY annoying and God, his mouth was probably sore as well. Poor guy. I applaud him for the way he handled it.
Hurricane, Alibi and The Kill were next, performed beautifully by Jared acoustically. Jared then got a couple of fans on stage to learn some Taiwanese. It was funny because when he repeated something in Taiwanese, the crowd screamed so loud that Jared looked shocked then quickly blocked his ears because it was so loud. The language barrier was quite funny to watch but Jared always deals with it well.
It was then time to “dance crazy” to Closer To The Edge, Night Of The Hunter and Vox Populi.
After Vox Populi, Jared took the crowd photo and talked to the crowd again. The guys were supposed to end the show with Kings and Queens but Jared said “Fuck it, Lets play another song” and they played From Yesterday. I spoke to Sarah about it after the show and she said she’s never seen the whole band play it before so YAY!
The entire show was fantastic and SO unbelievable from the side of stage. It was incredibly special and something I will never forget.
Kings and Queens was of course the closing song. As Jared started picking people out of the crowd to come on stage, Sarah told me to go. I grabbed my crown, chucked it on my head and jumped over a speaker and out onto the stage. Funnily enough, being in front of the crowd didn’t phase me like I thought it might. To be honest, I didn’t even notice them. I kept trying to stay toward the front of the crowd which seemed to be working quite well but it was pretty hard. It really is every man (or in this case girl) for themselves! Eventually Jared finished his selections and I had managed to stay toward the front of the pack and I had stayed just off to the right of Jared’s mic. I was stupidly excited. One of the girls in front of me moved sideways so I was now at the front beside her. I had managed to end up in the perfect spot! I threw my hands in the air singing the chant of Kings and Queens with everyone else in the room and sang along, watching Jared in complete awe who was right in front of me.
Jared signaled for the boy who had been on stage (wearing the hat) to come to the front with him. He made his way to the front where Jared grabbed the boy’s hat, then dropped it… picked it up and put it on his head just in time for the chorus. He threw the hat back not long after and went into the second verse. At the next chorus Jared turned around and started playing to us, I can’t remember this moment that well, which is why I’m so glad I have video of the entire song. He stood there playing his guitar with a huge smile on his face and was actually letting us touch his guitar as he was jamming. He looked over to the photographer who was on Shannon’s side of stage and grinned happily, almost with a look of “oh my god, look at this, look what i'm letting them do!” on his face before moving over toward me a little more. He then out of nowhere turned and put his face right up to us, singing in our faces before going over toward Tomo who was jumping around and going nuts. He played his guitar to us again before going back to the microphone.
As “In Defence of our dreams” came along, I threw my hands up and put my index fingers together, the way I always feel necessary when I hear that line. People on the left hand side of stage decided to ram everyone sideways to the right and I almost fell over, but whatever. The entire experience was absolutely incredible. It was definitely the most exhilarating moment of my life.
With Kings and Queens over, Jared made a quick exit to the left while Shannon jumped out to the front of his drums to throw drumsticks into the crowd. I was grinning from ear to ear. The show was over but I was on the greatest high. Security was telling everyone to leave the stage and even though most people were hanging around I didn’t want to be annoying so I started to move back towards the right. As I was doing so, I saw Tomo who was still on stage, moving toward me and in a way, stopping people from trying to get up to him. I had no idea what was happening I just remember people trying to take something from his hand. I didn’t have time to think what was going on but a moment later Tomo was standing in front of me and held out his hand. I put my hand out and he placed his guitar pick in my hand and smiled at me. I looked down at the little piece of blue plastic sitting in my hand, looked up at him, smiled and said “Thankyou” in a sense of shock and just like that, he was gone.
Even though to most people this was just a meaningless little well-used guitar pick, to me this was a symbol of that night and something that I will forever hold in my heart as one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me.
I wasn’t emotional, there were no tears, I walked over to the girls who were still at the side of the stage and said “Oh my God, Tomo just gave me his guitar pick.” “We saw!!” they said excitedly. I was in dismay. I was happy and overwhelmed, but for a change I wasn’t crying… I was smiling like a fool. I quickly took a couple of snaps of me with the girls on stage before Sarah came and got us and said “Ok girls, get your stuff, let’s go.”
I was already in a sense of, well, its hard to describe… happiness, disbelief, excitement… all those things times a million. The show was without a doubt the most incredible thing I’d ever witnessed and now I was going to meet the guys again. How could this night possibly get any better?!