Casualty and All for Nothing debuted live. What a show for Texas! Lowkey crazy we are finally getting some of these debuts. With this, the only songs that haven't been played live from THP yet are War and Mark the Graves.
I'm really tempted to listen to Casualty, but my will is strong and I won't cave in. I didn't know that I would wait over 7 years for a new Linkin Park album, so waiting 7 more days for the rest of the songs should be a piece of cake. I genuinely want to be surprised on my first listen.
With five days left and personal rationalizations on why wearing out the first three songs hasn’t been a thing, I’m definitely checking out Casualty and AFN asap.
You know. I may be biased here... but this may be one of the best shows I've ever been too? The only thing that rivals it is seeing Killswitch Engage in 2021. The energy was absolutely UNREAL! The best thing I did was getting pit tickets for this thing. I was so close, and within absolute spitting distance of Emily and Mike when they used the front of the stage. Being so close to them, one of the things I immediately picked up on is you can absolutely tell how much fun their having, especially Mike. He was practically beaming the entire time. The energy was already high, but seeing how much of a good time they were having too only added to that! I can't speak for others that were there, but for me the highlight of the night was without a doubt, Points of Authority. Growing up, I was someone always involved in some type of choir and singing choral music. More than anything, I loved the sense of togetherness and unity singing as a collective brings, it's a special feeling. Hearing an entire stadium sing the intro to Points of Authority in unison was a thing of beauty, and something I won't soon forget. It may sound corny, but I've never felt so connected to the people around me in that moment in a very long time. I forget exactly when I took this photo (maybe Leave Out all the Rest) but seeing a stadium light up like this on multiple occasions was so damn cool. It's absolutely crazy how many debuts we got! They teased us with All for Nothing by "having a surprise for us," and it was EPIC! A few songs later, Mike got back on Mike, and told us "we lied, we have another surprise for you," and I forget the exactly wording he used, but he said something like "time to put your screamy pants on," and I KNEW what was happening! I'm a fairly reserved person, I rarely let myself loose of my inhibitions and really enjoy myself care-free. Very easy to do when a mosh pit opens up like that! I don't think I've ever moshed that hard! And going straight into Given Up after that, I was tired and SWEATY! Getting the pit was so worth it. I got the intro to Casualty recorded, but stopped to really enjoy what was happening. I also really love this photo I got of Emily. Not to sound like a horny simp (not my intention) but I really like how the haloing around her makes her look like she's lit up like an angel, while screaming Faint, of all songs I'll leave it to @minusxerø @MKH and @Todd to drop more of their experiences and perspective on things, but I do have a few more things. For one, I do have a video of Phoenix speaking Spanish to the crowd, for all us mustard aficionados. Truly our GOAT. I post this simply because of how funny I think they are. As soon as I parked, it started raining, so I came into the venue all wet with my hair a mess. And as soon as it was done, I left even worse with my hair scattered and sweaty all over. So worth it. If you ever get the chance to see this band live, take it. You truly won't regret it! Such an unforgettable experience!
The band have begun posting photos from Dallas on social media. We finally have high quality Colin Cowboy hat.
That was everything I wanted out of a Linkin Park concert short of Alex getting a papercut and it being bad enough for them to come up and ask me to play on The Emptiness Machine. We were in section D, which was dead center to the catwalk, 2 rows behind pit. It gave us seats for anything we didn't want to stand for (which was most of Helmet and almost all of Jean Dawson, sorry, not sorry). Once we saw Emily and Mike were making very good, frequent use of coming out to the catwalk, we confirmed our seats were absolutely worth it. Wouldn't have gotten shots like this otherwise. Fully agree with Gibs on the energy - there were some folks around me singing to Helmet, 1 or 2 to Jean, half the row behind me and the back of the FZ pit to Bad Omens, but when the lights dimmed for LP, damn near everyone got up cause shit was about to get real. And it did. On a technical note, they also had the best mixing (minus Dave and bass for whatever reason were so damn high, I wasn't expecting that - it made a few slip-up's he had that much more noticeable...more on that in a bit...) of all the bands. What I mean is, I could properly hear all the elements of the song. I did wear earplugs for the opening acts, but took them out occasionally to see if I was missing anything musically. I didn't chance it with LP and, against Gibs' better judgment lol, went without - I may be deaf 5 years earlier than expected, but worth it. So, the slip-up's. There were a handful of moments where Mike and/or Dave missed a chord or readjusted - I dunno if it was a tuning issue or they were still adjusting to the change in key for Emily (even though it has been all these shows), but Dave more so than Mike. Dave missed his cue into a song, too, I forget which, but Mike didn't make it back to the mic to start his lines for one. That very same song, either his guitar was the wrong one or just not working, and they swapped them at the beginning of the song. Honestly though, after a decade plus (almost two, holy shit) of just watching them online and reading all the notes back in the day from LPLive and such about things like "on this show Brad and Dave swapped" or "on this show Mike had to play with a blindfold", etc., I was just noticing these small things - they did not negatively impact my experience in any way. If there aren't 3 opening acts again, pit may be something I opt for in the future (especially the VIP Premium package cause why not?) but our seats were great, Emily was fantastic, Mike is on top of the world, Colin is in his element, Dave and Joe are monotonously hilarious and Alex might be one of the happiest dudes I've ever seen.