LINKIN PARK BRINGS VOICE, SCREAMS & SWEAT TO MONTREAL
Click HERE for photos of the show!
Everyone in the Bell Center hold their breath as the lights went out and the eery notes of ‘The Requiem’ opened up Linkin Park’s set this pas Monday in Montreal. While the intro was going on, the band members appeared one by one on the stage, still in the dark. The sound slowly faded… before exploding as the band started playing ‘Faint’. The intense mood of the night was set up.
Following are ‘Lying From You’ and ‘Given Up’, where Chester Bennington shows off his amazing abilities to sing and scream and run everywhere all at the same time. Looking possessed, he then starts dancing, and shares the singing with the crowd for ‘What I’ve Done’. It’s so hot in the venue that it almost feels like summer again. As if it were not enough, the band then plays ‘No More Sorrow’ and ‘From The Inside’; now everyone’s jumping and shouting the choruses along, while Chester leaps so much you’d think he’s flying as he sings at the top of his lungs “I won’t trust myself with you”.
That’s when Mike Shinoda takes his micro to sing ‘Jornada Del Muerto’ as the first song off their latest album – A Thousand Suns – of the show. The song is less brutal than the previous ones, and makes a cool introduction to ‘Waiting For The End’. But you don’t get to enjoy the calm for a long moment. The band follows up with ‘Blackout’, which must have been the most violent song of the set. Its pace, its music, the way Chester spits the words out send shivers down your spine. When he starts hitting on a few drums a tech brought, you just wonder how long he can keep on going without breaking them.
After such an explosive beginning finally comes a small break. ‘Numb’ suddenly calms everyone down, though the crowd never stopped singing. ‘The Radiance’ speech then introduces the powerful ‘Iridescent’. As Mike sings the first words, seating in front of his keyboard, thousands of phones and cameras light up the venue. It’s incredibly beautiful, and Chester thanks their public for being so amazing to them.
We then can hear ‘Fallout’ in the dark… before the band comes back to the sound of their single ‘The Catalyst’. The lighting effects add to the feeling that we just entered a club, which was one of the best way to get everyone to start moving up and down again. The band still has one more slow song to play to us – ‘Shadow Of The Day’. The Bell Center resounds with the crowd’s singing.
At this point in the show, no matter how good of a time you’re having, one question is torturing you if you’re one of their old fans: is Linkin Park going to play a few songs from their first album, Hybrid Theory? None of them has been played so far… There’s no need to worry though. They only kept the good oldies for the end! How could they leave without playing ‘In The End’? Seeing how everyone’s singing, that would’ve been a huge mistake. Mike took the opportunity to go to the fence and make the first rows sing with him.
The set ended as it started: in a bang! Everyone’s clapping for ‘Bleed It Out’. Along with the song comes a drum solo, and the bridge of ‘A Place For My Head’, with Chester singing “You try to take the best of me…” and the crowd responding “Go away!” in unison.
The band goes off stage for a few minutes… but it’s not over yet. They come back with ‘Empty Spaces’ and ‘When They Come For Me’, before playing ‘Papercut’. And while you’re losing your voice and sweating of so much emotion, all six guys look and sound like they’re just beginning their show. They’re still running everywhere and rocking the stage as they play ‘New Divide’. But everything good has to come to an end; Chester says goodbye his way, hugging everybody at the fence while singing ‘Crawling’. With ‘One Step Closer’ as the final song, the band ends a perfect show, leaving everyone hoping to see them again soon.
Click HERE for photos of the show!
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