Gasping for air on Mars.
Last Friday, the 22nd, was the first of the three-day rock music festival called Java Rockin' Land here in Jakarta. Since I'm quite broke all the time, I couldn't really afford to buy the Rp.550,000 ticket--around $60 (yet scalpers were selling them for Rp.150,000 / $20. Ha!), but super lucky for me, a very awesome friend of mine got some free tickets and she gave me one. I don't know whether I'd have still bought a ticket myself if she hadn't given me one.. I probably would've.. somehow. And the only reason I wanted to come to the event that day? 30 Seconds to Mars. People, I'm talking about Jared Leto. Blue-eyed, sex-on-legs Jared Leto.
Okay, I know being a 30 Seconds to Mars fan isn't exactly cool. Well, at least not as cool as being a fan of.. U2. Or Glee. And being a 30 Seconds to Mars fan because of Jared Leto would probably sound even less cool. However, I actually like the band's songs more than I care to admit. I knew about them ever since the first album but I started really paying attention to them since the second album, which I lovelovelove. Excuse me for finding greatness in songs with incomprehensible lyrics sung by a very sexy man, in a very sexy voice.
At first, they were supposed to perform at 11 PM, which was late enough for me. And then, due to some 'technical issues' (one or more members of the band couldn't make the plane on time, or so the news said), the performance was postponed to 12:45 AM. I thought WHAT THE FUCK ONE AM ARE YOU KIDDING ME but still went there anyway.
I arrived at about 10.30 PM due to the very bad traffic around the festival area--a beach at the northern part of Jakarta. It was a disaster to enter or exit the area. Organizers, please think of something. You've been doing this for years. Improve. So anyway, since it was a festival, there were a lot of stages and a lot of performances so I thought there wouldn't be that many people standing by the stage that 30 Seconds to Mars would perform at. But apparently the number of Indonesian Echelon was quite big. And it was already crowded.
I managed to squeeze into some space not too far from the T-shaped stage. I wasn't satisfied at all but.. wasn't able to do anything else. That was the best spot I could find. So I stood and stood and stood for about two hours. And then at some point there were a few girls, I think, that held up a MARS banner but as soon as they held it up, a bunch of guys in the back started cursing something like "Put it down, you moron! It's blocking the stage!" and the banner was nowhere to be seen for the rest of the night. Poor girls. Think about how they had put their heart into making that banner. Everyone was sitting at first, but then they all began to stand up and tighten the space between one another. I thought that was tight enough. But unfortunately, when the show started, everyone started going crazy. And it was a fucking nightmare.
Maybe, I was just being a newbie. Maybe, I was just having the first authentic rock concert experience of my life. Or maybe, just maybe, the crowd was just fucking crazy. These assholes started pushing one another and I mean pushing. I was moved around uncontrollably and then they started jumping. While still pushing. I was literally gasping for air. Literally. The mass of jumping bodies felt like a huge, towering, living wall surrounding me. I couldn't breathe and for the first thirty seconds or so (no pun intended) I felt nothing but REGRET. I wondered why I came at all. I wondered if I should have stayed home. Was I there to discover what gasping for air actually means? Or how passing out actually feels? But then the man entered the stage. So I thought, come on, it's Jared fucking Leto. You'll be fine. However, with crazy people jumping all around me, I couldn't see him yet. I wasn't too far from the stage but I am, unfortunately, height challenged--which is quite an understatement. My body decided to stop growing taller years ago, at about 156cm or so. Which means, at times like these, I was a hopeless case. But then he walked and stopped. At my 12 o'clock. And I could see him clearly.
Okay, the one good outcome from the whole pushing thing is that when people got pushed around, positions shifted, and without realizing it, I got closer to the stage. I was probably around 4 meters away from the stage so I could see him quite clearly. I could see his blue eyes. His perfect teeth (though probably not as perfect as Ricky Martin's?). And I thought, Ah. So THIS is beauty. I swear, he was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. He looked just like in the movies, if not better. He was as beautiful as I imagined and all the stress and regrets vanished in a second. I grinned like a ten year-old Belieber in a Justin Bieber concert and was genuinely, absolutely happy.
He was a real crowd pleaser. He would talk and talk and interact with the crowd and give compliments about Indonesia, like a pro. Although they were all just the same words he must have spoken in every country, the crowd seemed to eat it up anyway. He said stuff like "You people are unbelievably amazing", "I've just made up my mind, right now. I plan on coming to Indonesia for the rest of my natural--(crowd was cheering to loud)", "I have to say I'm in love. This is the beginning of a long love affair". Did he mean it? IRRELEVANT. They were buttered. Me? I was uncomfortable with all that LYING in my face and stuff but.. moving on.
I've always wondered how Jared could do it. How he could do a gazillion concerts in a short amount of time, with songs that almost always include screaming. Let's face it people, he's not exactly Chester Bennington. And now I got it. Apparently he barely sings during concerts. Well, at least this time. The crowd sang for him. A lot. Sometimes he would ask us to sing the chorus, most of the time he didn't have to ask anything at all and we would just sing our asses off anyway. He didn't really have to sing, we all sang for him. The crowd was happy, he was happy, it was a win-win situation. Smart man, that Jared Leto. Smart man.
They performed Kings and Queens for the encore and a bunch of people got to come up on stage to make a fool of themselves in public. I mean they could sing along and jump and act like they were in a trance and all, on the stage. It was harmless at first, a few people that Jared and a guy named Steve picked climbed the stage and some tried to hug Jared or something--and failed miserably. On stage. It was quite a sad yet hilarious thing to see. And then, of course, some jerks started to get too worked up or something and, from what I heard (because I couldn't really see what was happening), they were stumbling and injuring themselves. Remember, in this country such events that involve this large a crowd wouldn't be complete unless someone got injured. Jared looked a little startled and said, "Stop stop stop," and the people-picking stopped. Great job, Indonesians, you never fail to embarrass yourselves.
So, after a little more than an hour it was 2 AM and the performance came to an end, creating an exodus. There were apparently a lot of people that stayed for the whole thing. In just a few minutes (or seconds?) after the show ended, the band exited in a black Audi, complete with police escort and all. Jared pulled the car window down and some people ran to shake his hands and stuff. Gosh, people. Have some dignity. I didn't shake his hands, of course, but I could.. see his arm.
I didn't take notes (duh) but from what I remember, they opened with Escape (not followed by Night of the Hunter. WTF? I thought Escape was supposed to be the overture for Night of the Hunter!), followed by A Beautiful Lie. And they went on to perform This Is War, Closer to the Edge, From Yesterday, The Kill, Attack, 100 Suns, Search and Destroy, Hurricane (sans Kanye West.. too bad), Alibi, Vox Populi, all not in that particular order. They ended the night with, of course, Kings and Queens. I might have forgotten something. Or not. They didn't perform anything from the first album, which was a shame because I was hoping for Capricorn.
After the very crazy night that left me tired, dehydrated, fucking filthy and sweaty and might even have lost some precious strains of hair: was it traumatic? Yes. Would I do it again? I'd have to think about it. Did seeing the man that frequents my wet dreams and fantasies in the flesh make it all worth it? OH GOD YES.
EDIT: A few days ago the band's website put up this very neat picture of the night (it's up for sale as a poster) so take a look! (Useful pointers and information are provided by me, of course)
