Mike Eizenger raped the SHIT out of Bleed It Out! Holy hell was that a sight on see on an LP stage! Brad REALLY needs to learn how to play solos like that.
LP live on TV. Hell yes. Band does excellent as always. I can't read Mike's hat though. Lol I gave up trying to do that and just came in here after it ended.
I agree that Chester definitely struggled for the first half of the set. It was even clear in Given Up. But I thought once Lies Greed Misery hit he did a solid job through the rest of it. And yeah, the guitarist for Incubus was honestly the highlight of the show for me. Hearing Bleed It Out, which I've heard hundreds of times, with a crazy ass solo like that was insane. I know Brad's mindset and all that, but dude...that was fucking GNARLY.
Holy fuck that show was insane, totally destroyed my ears. Best pit of the 3 shows I've been to this year (House Of Blues, Nokia, Home Depot Center)
With you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OghrUkrD1tY Lost in the Echo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yuoUFsV_5g&feature=plcp Burn It Down http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmZiAcZQQlQ
I have to admit, I feel bad for Chester. He has one rough night and I feel it's all people focus on. Nevermind that the mixing was abyssmal on the live broadcast, and was missing some instruments totally in some tracks. No people instead focus on Chester straining on two songs. Like someone correctly pointed out, when the setlists consist of screaming for 80% of the setlist night after night, that's going to make any vocalist fatiqued/bound to have a semi-rough night once and a while. Something went wrong during New Divide (it wasn't just Chester, the whole performance felt off and slightly out of time and mixed improperly...although perhaps it was the TV broadcast and not the band) but the rest of the show was great. I think people need to understand that the band is human, and are bound to not be 100% perfect every night. They brought down the house at Camden, and did great at other shows too.
I honestly didn't think he sounded that bad. His live vocals have never been perfect, but you can't really expect them to be when you sing the way he does. Like Derek said, the bad mixing of the TV broadcast just exacerbated the issue.
I´ve said this other times... No matter when Linkin park play some kind of aired show people start to pick little things about Chester´s performances...it´s like he´s into an American Idol audiction for his whole life!!! The guy sings songs NOBODY in the world can sing day after day and people still want him to be perfect in all!!!
Not even that, it's that people forget that on record these vocal tracks have been pitch corrected, layered, and embellished with studio sheen. It's not a criticism of the band either, every band does it. It's why Robot Boy still hasn't been played live because it has more layers than what the band can recreate with just 6 people live. So naturally, it's going to be near impossible to sound like the record every single night, and nobody should expect that either. The band has improved leaps and bounds from where they were in the old days. They're just fine live.
The best part is when people say "why can't he perform like in 2004?" In reality, the Chester from Meteora days would simply laugh at the idea of even attempting to perform New Divide, In My Remains, Burn It Down, The Catalyst and Waiting for the End. He would either sound atrocious, or the songs would be far less dynamic in range.
I'd say it's 50/50. Chester couldn't have performed those songs in 2004, probably. But today, he can't sing songs like Crawling/Somewhere I belong/POA/... like he did back then. And when he's trying to get that raspy voice back, it often sounds forced, like he was struggling to do it. I'm not negative about his performance at this show anyway. I found it quite good (except 2 or 3 songs) , not Chester's best night, but not the worst either.
I want to point out that it wasn't just LP's performance that suffered from the mixing. Incubus' performance had awful mixing in it too. Was still a fun show to watch.
Well I was there and Chester sounded fucking incredible, especially when he would scream randomly, I was impressed.