February 19th at Nottingham’s Trent FM Arena, Thirty Seconds to Mars are all ready and waiting in position on stage. The curtain drops, the crowd scream, the spotlights robotically rotated filling the room; many colors blues, reds, greens filled the stage. Singer/star Jared Leto in particular looked ready for war with his new mohawk hairstyle. He looked a little more worn and more aggressive than the last time seen in the U.K., back in 2007. The new punk subculture visual style creates a whole new look for the band. The new album, This Is War, speaks for itself, and the hairstyle minus the war paint tells all another story.
Amplified synth sounds vibrate and a media frenzy fills the room. Real time visual projections are on the 
wall via two strategically placed screens that take a dominant position behind the band. The images also consist of the beautiful cinematography created by director ‘Bartholomew Cubbins’, a.k.a. Mr. Leto!
The crowd’s screams intensify as “Closer to the Edge” begins. “A Beautiful Lie”, “Kings and Queens” and “This Is War” gain an equally intense sense of delight from the audience. In fact, all of the tracks performed through out the evening were received with much love.
Midway through the performance the smoke machines create an atmospheric sense of intensity; the lights go out and additional synth sounds fill the room with philosophical quotes that complimented the nostalgic ‘80s electronic music (slightly reminiscent of Vangelis sound tracks from the ‘80s cult film Bladerunner). These sounds defused the situation, which was that the stage was now left completely empty. The band had entirely moved themselves away from the stage.
Thirty Seconds to Mars playing live at Trent FM Arena in Nottingham, England, U.K. on February 19th, 2010:
Jared made himself comfortable way up high in the seating area, creating a personal experience for the lucky people that decided to seat themselves comfortably throughout the night. People who had made their way to the front looked slightly perturbed. However, the band eventually made their way back down.
Overall, the evening was a huge success and a fantastic way for the band to start their first date of the tour. Another highlight of the evening being Shannon’s atmospheric acoustic song, “L490”.
Throughout the show, the support band Street Drum Corps appeared; they drummed, stomped and clapped. However, towards the end of the show, the Corps made a more predominant 
entrance, placing themselves at the front of the stage to accompany Thirty Seconds to Mars for the performance of “Kings and Queens”. The crowd was also invited to join the band on stage, which momentarily caused slight hysteria amongst the masses. Many young women and men crowd surfed with huge determination to get on that stage, which may have caused a few minor injuries.
Another huge memorable aspect of the evening was that you could see the time and effort that was put into the stage design in order to compose a unique evening. The structure of the songs along with the visuals certainly painted a picture and told a story.
