Band: Linkin Park
Support: Does It Offend You Yeah
Venue: O2 Arena, London
Date: 10 & 11 November 2010
Ok ok, so I know I normally cover dance & electronic music rather than metal and rock but tonight I’m going to attempt to jump genres and review Linkin Park at the o2 Arena in London.
After spending two hours in traffic thanks to Matt’s ‘Garmin‘ satellite navigation directing us straight through the middle of London during rush hour, we finally arrived in the large car park that severs the o2 arena. The dome glew on the horizon, with tall dot-matrix pillars lining the entrance displaying the Linkin Park logo.As we approached the arena we were presented with an array of fountains, statues and impressive colour changing LED lighting.
It was a cold evening so I was glad to get inside.Large queues formed at the entrance to the venue, although everyone was quiet and well behaved. The doors opened at 6:30pm and everyone trudged in.
The main arena obviously doubles up at a sports pitch and was laid out as so. Vast tiered-seating surrounded a wooden floor with the stage at one end. Large speaks hung from the roof by stranded cables over the stage, I can happily report the audio in the venue was amazing. Very loud, pounding bass and a wide frequency of sound. All the levels were spot on you could hear each instrument and vocal clearly which is such a refreshing change from some of our more local venues :/
I noted that there was a wide range of ages in the crowd. The split between seating and standing allowed the older, the younger and less abled to sit and enjoy the audio and visual performance while the teenagers and 20somethings could dance, mosh and sweat together in the middle. We chose to sit..
The first and only support act for Linkin Park was ‘Does It Offend You Yeah?‘. The Reading based electro-rock band fronted by James Rushent put on a high spirited show with plenty of dirty synths and antics on stage. James explained it was his childhood dream to run the length of the stage like Axl Rose did to the intro of Paradise City, and proceeded to do this with the crown clapping him on. At one point he tripped over one of the monitor speakers sending him ass-over-tit. No one seemed to care and he carried on without embarrassment. They finished their set with their most famous track, and indeed the only one I recognised, “We Are Rockstars“. This went down a storm and got the crowd jumping.
A short recess followed with the house lights brought on to allow people to take comfort breaks and re-stock their drinks glasses. Everyone was reseated by 8pm and the lights dimmed almost on time for Linkin Park entered the stage one at a time.
Well there’s no point in me explaining who Linkin Park are or what they sound like. I’d imagine most people reading this will be fans and if not, theres enough other reviews and videos out there for you to fiest on. Chester Bennington‘s vocals were spot on, putting most X Factor contestants to shame. Joe Hahn scratched and tapped away on his touch sensitive audio board. Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon were sporting massive beards and David Farrell had no expression. The style shifted from bass heavy guitar stompers to snare-drum happy chanters and chilled-melodic ballads. At one point extra drums were brought on to the stage and four band members were all hammering away at the same time to create a well timed marching percussion. The lighting was accurate and went well with each performance, the crowd all clapped and bounced in harmony and on several occasions small mosh pits opened up although they didn’t amount to much.
The band worked their way through all of the well recognisable songs such as “In the End“, “Crawling” and “Numb” with both Rob Bourdon and Chester Bennington showing off their musical talent by switching between singing, playing guitar and playing the keyboard. The performance closed with a long encore consisting of three songs and plenty of bowing to the applauding crowd.
All in all it was an enjoyable show, the band were very professional on stage and appear to have survived the rock star lifestyle thus far relatively unscathed. Thoroughly enjoyed both Linkin Park and the o2 arena
Reviewer: Mike Thomas for www.hitthefloor.co.uk
