Linkin Park rocks to the rules
E-Media
American nu-metal band Linkin Park stamped its mark on Kuala Lumpur last night, when it played to the biggest concert in the city in recent years in historic Stadium Merdeka.
The magnitude of the show was not only measured by the turnout of about 20,000 which had gathered by the late afternoon, but also by the current standing of the Southern Californian act as the toast of the genre.
There were no untoward incidents throughout, with the police making their presence felt, not only for security reasons in view of possible protests over the band’s performance here, but also to ensure the smooth flow of traffic in the city.
When the gates opened at 6.30pm, anticipation had reached fever pitch.
Local hip-hop outfit Too Phat took to the stage for the curtain raiser, and became victims of a crowd anxious for the headlining act. They were booed by several sections of the impatient audience.
An hour later, after a 30-minute set, and another 30 minutes of fine-tuning equipment onstage, the nu-metal first pin-ups burst on with Don’t Stay, a track off their current release, Meteora.
Performing on a minimal stage set-up with a simple blue backdrop bearing the band’s name, and little else except for the occasional jungle of equipment and cables, Linkin Park rarely paused for a breather as they churned out the crowd pleasers non-stop.
The band, comprising vocalist Chester Bennington, drummer Rob Bourdon, guitarist Brad Delson, turntablist Joseph Hahn, bassist Phoenix and vocalist cum guitarist Mike Shinoda, were almost drowned out in the first few numbers as the crowd roared in delight at their mere presence.
Putting on a high energy set that drew heavily on the band’s smash debut, Hybrid Theory with highlights of their remix album, Reanimation as well as Meteora, the band threatened to exhaust the crowd midway.
With no time wasted on filler or marginal tunes to bloat a taut show that never relented, Linkin Park displayed the very elements that resulted in their meteoric rise to prominence.
After a total of 10 songs including hit singles Somewhere I Belong and Papercut, Bennington took to the mike and rallied the audience to join in unison for three hearty shouts of ‘Malaysia Boleh!’. A wide grin followed before he added, “Yeah, nothing’s impossible!”.
Rock’s most well-mannered screamers, had little difficulty adhering to the strict artiste performance ethics imposed as conditions for their stopover, which kicks off three Asian cities tour that includes dates in Japan and Korea.
Among restrictions were the need for the artistes to cover up from their chest to knees, no rough and raunchy actions, no leaping around, screaming, or throwing something from the stage to the audience.
That along with warnings not to make sexually provocative gestures or speech, including dance moves, kissing the crowd or performing similar acts among themselves nor are they allowed to wear clothes or body accessories considered obscene or linked to drugs and other negative elements.
In fact, Bennington was at times, seen skipping about onstage, in what can perhaps be construed a laughably cute attempt to beat the terms.
With three more songs in Pushing Me Away as well as chart-topping numbers in Numb and Crawling, Linkin Park were ready to call it a night.
The audience were, however, determined to milk the most out of the ticket prices and rather exorbitantly charged refreshments and chanted endlessly for an encore.
The six-piece outfit readily agreed and offered another three tunes including chart-topping tunes in In The End and Points Of Authority.