Enter Shikari & 30 Seconds to Mars live

 Awaiting the next band having missed the first act,funeral party, I’m clinging onto every bit of remaining optimism, after travelling up the country and paying an excessive price for a ticket off a cheeky northern tout in a last minute plan to see the gorgeous Mr Leto in the flesh. But as I cosy up in the crowd congregating in the Manchester Central arena the atmosphere tells me this is going to be an ambitious show worth all the effort.

Plunged into black out, the ‘trance-assisted screamo’ kicks in to our guts and the mosh begins to hammer as hard as the bass line. Enter Shikari are monstrous, in the sexy sense of the word. The balance between the set list and audience interaction is flush, the result is faultless. Never short on energy these boys get us sweating quickly and maintain the chaos when Rory’s guitar breaks during Destabilise. Their music batters music ‘genres’ to smithereens, “You can’t destabilise, define or label us”.  Head butted in the jaw, stalking the edge of the ever expanding mosh pit seems like a regretful idea when *clap clap clap* sorry, you’re not a winner and the squeaky dub remix of juggernauts kick in. There’s no other place to experience this. Hectic synthing, aggressive breakdowns and cymbals thunder the arena with stabs of Rou’s scratchy vocal roars, which add humanity to this digital riot.7 years after forming, they’re still turning all our eyes red and making all your girlfriends cream. 

15 minutes too late, the pretentious Jared Leto struts onstage with his sunglasses on. Admiring glances shoot onto the stage, even from the alpha males at the bar. He is ridiculously attractive, but this is an obvious point, after we were projected the Hurricanevideo, which has caused major controversial issues with its explicit nudity and bondage. We’re all gagging for a bit of this sex god but are we so hungry for his music? A somewhat stop start set but with a fuck load of tracks on the set list, the LA trio 30 Seconds To Mars do a good job. Towards the end, the mosh pit resembles a quarry in the crowd and the audience interaction is top priority. My friend gets shot in the face, with a t-shirt, which is gunned off the stage by Jared himself. The question of their arrogance would however be overcome were the front man to not insist that each song be dragged out, and ad-lib to big up his self -important, god like status.The show finishes with silver confetti cannoned into the arena, a bunch of fans onstage and serious cravings for a cigarette.