“Linkin Fuck! Linkin Fuck!” chanted the huge crowd this evening at the Yuan Shan stadium.
“Linkin Fuck?” I thought as I smiled. “Wow, that’s new…“
They were actually chanting “Linkin Park,” who performed tonight, November 16 (Friday) at the Songshan Soccer Stadium to an audience of 37,000 — their second largest in LP history to date! Wow, I can’t imagine that many Taiwanese people adore the band as I do!
Check out the crowd — the entire stadium was FULL. Even Beyonce and 50 Cent couldn’t fill up the place as LP did! Wooooohoooooo! And I was pretty much in the front rows!
Turns out, not everybody — most of the people I know attending the concert have no clue who Linkin Park is. “What type of songs do they sing? Rap? Rock?”
“No, no no…” I exasperatedly replied. “It’s alternative, but I love their tunes because it’s a mixture of soft, loud and a lot of screaming. But it’s melodic as well!”
I was a fan since I first heard “In the End,” when it aired in MTV. I remember that it held the top spot for record breaing weeks.
I’ve followed them fromn Hybrid Theory to Meteora and even now till Minutes to Midnight, which was slightly different from their previous beats, but loveable just the same.
In fact, the only reason why I purchased those expensive 50 Cent tickets was because I thought Linkin Park was opening for them. It was later on that I found out it was Fort Minor who was the opening act NOT Linkin Park. Disappointing until I discovered that Fort Minor totally rocked and 50 Cent didn’t.
I’ve been a fan of “Remember the Name” and “Where’d you Go” afterwards. Mike Shinoda rules!
Hence, you can imagine my excitement after learning that Linkin Park will be in town! My favorite band — heck, even if the tickets cost NT$10,000, I’d still go for it!
Anyway, they did NOT disappoint. An added plus was that I knew ALL the songs and was pumped up all throughout the show.
Especially loved the lighted background — gave new meaning to the songs that they’ve been trying to sing. For example, in “What I’ve Done,” they rolled in tapes of the effects of war, global warming, deforestation and everything else we do against mankind and nature. I’ve never really thought of the song that way — that it’s us who destroys the things we love the most, to our detriment.
They played all their songs from the three albums with such pizzazz that it gave everybody an adrenalin rush! Everybody was just mouthing the songs as the band screamed along — I was surprised that the crowd behind me knew all the lyrics!
It was great!!! And though I know some of my friends who have attended this concert would have walked away (they got free tickets and had no clue on who LP is), I totally loved it and was worth the time of stepping away when I should’ve been studying!
Afterwards, my friend and I had some nice yam-cha (Hong Kong dimsum) much to the detriment of my already-failing diet. A nice end to a GREAT night.
Till next time!