The Linkin Park concert in Phoenix on February 28 made three things clear: the band certainly does put on a hell of a show, their intertwining set list and visuals that change each performance were genius, and the next generation of concert-goers (or at least this particularly crowd) don't know anything about mosh pits.
Voted Best Live Act at the 2010 MTV European Music Awards, multi-platinum band Linkin Park kicked off their anticipated North American tour in January in support of their new album, A Thousand Suns.
On this certain night, the band came on late to fans chanting their name after opening acts Circa Survive and the Paper Tongues (Prodigy also opened for the band on select dates, as Linkin Park are huge fans). Fog swirled over the stage as the lights dimmed and two massive, three-story tall, gyrating screens flickered with static. Bass reverberated the ground and strobe lights matched the severity of the building energy. Platforms, staircases and elevated boxes arranged on stage setting the tone for a high-energy show with lots of space for the musicians to take advantage of.
And that they did, keeping Phoenicians on their feet and in awe.
Mike Shinoda (vocals, guitar, keyboard), donning red-framed sunglasses and a huge smile for much of the show, hopped around, jumping onto higher parts of the stage to thrust the guitar out to the audience, while Chester Bennington (vocals) spit and strutted, throwing his entire body into leaps with the microphone and onto the percussion set on the front of the stage. Occasionally, he pulled out a megaphone. Brad Delson (guitar) wore old-school glitter headphones and often caught the eye of press cameras in front of the stage before launching into solos, providing great photography shots. Phoenix (bass) gravitated to stage left and continued to stay for the majority of the show, intensely engrossed in his playing, while Joe Hahn (turntables) showcased his energy by throwing up his arms and peace signs, moving his head to the rhythms with random close-up shots of his hands splashed across the immense screens. And Rob Bourdon (drums) provided a strong backbone, grinning and taking in the crowd’s energy before regurgitating it back out through his pounding drumsticks.
The band’s live show was (and is) entirely a celebration of sound and imagery – a flowing multi-media experience that befits the power of the music. The look of the show has to do mostly with the new album, A Thousand Suns, which plays a central role.
“Our art team developed technology that’s new, just specific to this show, and it had a lot to do with the fact that in our show we don’t play the exact same thing every night,” explained Shinoda. “We play different set lists and then within those set lists we improvise, so we wanted a way for the look of the show to kind of ebb and flow with whatever we do with the music. So, from night to night, the music will be different and the visuals will be different as well. No two shows will be the same.”
The backdrop played a handful of music videos in accordance with the songs, intriguing graphics, close-up shots of the musicians as they were performing, Cold War political speeches, and nuclear connotations. Visually, it was captivating and intelligent.
The 25-song set list kicked off with Requiem and quickly moved into the rap-heavy Papercut. The show combined the biggest hits of the band’s career, such as "Numb", "What I’ve Done" and "Crawling"—of which Chester paused halfway through and self-humorously said "I forgot the f***ing words before erupting into laughter and resuming the song—as well as material from the new album. He even ended "Breaking The Habit" front and center stage with no instrumentals, singing along emotionally with the few thousand Phoenix natives.
Highlights also included "When They Come for Me," during which Bennington and Shinoda played drums and lead guitarist Delson directed bursts of sound to the crowd, and an interlude found Bennington's vocals paired with an organ. The latter also strapped on a guitar for "Iridescent," a new power ballad full of chiming guitars and powerful drumming.
For the past decade, Linkin Park has been known for music that always seems to adapt to what’s currently relevant to society, as well as successfully merging rock and hip-hop. Every record the band puts out seems to almost reinvent their sound, particularly if you compare this most recent record that was produced by Rick Rubin (more electronic based, loose and abstract) to one such as Hybrid Theory (heavier, more concise and harsher vocals). Over the years the band has evolved their sound, whether it was from listening to different music, playing different instruments or exploring new concepts.
“I find that when we're working on an album, we really are focused on what is best for the songs and this is the first time we really have kind of gotten into the idea of what we would like the entire album to feel like to a certain degree,” said Bennington. “Usually we work on songs individually...and, hopefully, what we do at the end of the day is we make a good song and, when we have an album like this, A Thousand Suns, where the songs really work united with each other. We wanted to have a vibe, we kind of knew that conceptually to a certain degree we wanted the album to be presented as a piece of art as a whole rather than a collection of songs.”
Chester showed some local love throughout the show by stating a couple times that it was “good to be home!!!” which resulted in wild cheers. And back up in the seats, an occasional whiff of marijuana smoke brought frantic security guards running, but the overall feeling of the crowd was relaxed and optimistic.
“You really get engrossed in the performance of a band [in an arena such as US Airways Center] and that, to me, is the ideal scenario. The energy in an arena is so great when there's a good show going that it kind of makes the experience extra, like, almost, like, supernatural,” Bennington elaborated.
Speaking of supernatural, Linkin Park always seems dedicated to taking the concert experience to the next medium of being omnipresent, which will only evolve in the future (on the road, they have been writing and working on new material). Included as a bonus with the purchase of every ticket, fans could download a live recording of the show by texting a code from their mobile phones that was displayed at the venue. Additionally, one dollar for each ticket purchased goes to Music For Relief, a charity founded by Linkin Park to provide relief to victims of natural disasters and to bring awareness to solutions to the global warming challenge.
Sound could have been better at the show; at times it sounded muddy and weakly amplified, particularly during the first half of the show. But overall it was exciting, high-energy and And in the end, I began to wonder if the younger generation of rock fans even knew what to do in the pit—there wasn’t one mosh pit in the entire show! I have even been to a Pepper show where mosh pits were crazy. I know Linkin Parks’ original fan base was into the moshing because of the harder music, but really? Not one mosh pit in the entire concert? Even as a fan of much heavier bands I felt the urge to start running around. Lucky for those teens I wasn’t down there.
Check out the slide show of photos taken of the live performance from the front row.
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