Author: Stacy Scales

To their fans, 30 Seconds to Mars are as much a religion as they are a band. If you’d have said this to me a week ago, I wouldn’t have known enough about other fans to agree or disagree. Though the band released their eponymous first album in 2002, it wasn’t until late 2009 that I wised up enough to pay them some attention. In retrospect, I can only wish I’d have gotten on board years ago.

In 1994, like most other fifteen-year-old girls, I was swooning over the baby blues of My So-Called Life‘s “Jordan Catalano,” as most of us first knew Jared Leto. After the show was canceled, I followed his film career sporadically. I heard he was in a band, and yet because I knew him first and foremost to be an actor, I never even thought to give them a listen. In 2005, a friend and I randomly bumped into Mr. Leto wandering from tent to tent at Warped tour in Long Beach, but even then I was more interested in not drooling over his long blond hair than in checking out his band. It wasn’t until the adamant recommendation of a virtual stranger in late 2009 that I turned my ears toward the album that would quickly lead me to call 30 Seconds to Mars my favorite band (This is War). After finally getting to see them live for the first time Friday night at SJSU’s Events Center, I’m starting to understand why I saw licensed t-shirts printed with the words “yes this is a cult.” Continue reading “Show Review: 30 Seconds to Mars with CB7 at SJSU Events Center, 4/8/2011”