March 5, 2008
Variety

There are no cryogenic freezing chambers in popular music. Trends change rapidly and bands who were once firmly in vogue often struggle to remain relevant in the years following breakthrough success. The inevitable backlash caused by a hyped movement or genre leaves in its wake legions of casualties, and Linkin Park should be no exception. But the Los Angeles six-piece continues to enjoy enormous worldwide commercial success for reasons Tuesday's sold out show at the Staples Center could not make apparent.

A pyramid-shaped row of stairs, a few elevated ramps and some heavily-pixilated neon screens comprised Linkin Park's surprisingly austere stage setup, which was presented in-the-round with no backstage visual impediments. The band members struck poses and utilized their cordless instruments to confront the crowd from every angle. Singers Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington frequently urged audience participation and engaged in a series of syrupy monologues that covered topics as disparate as Hurricane Katrina, hometown success, and Hollywood celebrities.

Musically, the band's bread and butter is the rapped verse/screamed chorus numbers from debut "Hybrid Theory" and its follow up "Meteora." Compared to the stale arena anthems and meditative ballads from last year's "Minutes to Midnight" old stand-bys "Crawling" and "In The End" seemed downright triumphant. The evening's low point came during "Midnight's" Katrina-themed ballad "The Little Things Give You Away." With metaphors as subtle as a brick wall and the painfully awkward refrain "And now there will be no mistaking / the levees are breaking" the song makes one long for the days when Linkin Park only wrote about teenage despair.