I kinda forgot to post this here. I wrote part 1 on December 17th, read this first cause I'll have part 2 up later today. (Note about this blog: I'm going to be releasing a series of blogs about the 1st Madison Square Garden show in 2008 leading up to my review of MSG show #2 taking place on Feb. 4th 2010, so stay tuned here and LPAssociation.com for more.) 1 month, 2 weeks and 4 days...I will be going back to NYC once again. It seems like just yesterday, February 21st 2008, that I was attending only my 2nd Linkin Park concert. It was at Madison Square Garden in the heart of New York City. I had prepared taking the train ride a few weeks in advance just to make sure I got their early enough to secure a spot right up by the stage. The train ride, which takes 45 minutes from the station by my house to Penn Station located directly underneath MSG, seemed like it took forever partially because I was nervous beyond anything to get in line early. At Project Revo nearly six months prior to MSG, I was stuck with having to sit all the way at the top section of the PNC Arts Center and having my seats moved anyway cause an air conditioner some twenty feet above me was dripping some brown acidy goo stuff on my pants. (It was still a pretty cool view to see everyones arms in the air and some of my other favorites as well.) But everything was cool once we got there, my friend Nick and I got into the city around noon and stopped in at the Heartland Brewery for some lunch just at the bottom of the Empire State Building. The chicken finger platter sounded like a good quick bite to have before heading back to the outside of the Garden and freezing our buns and thighs off for a good couple of hours. When we did get in line, a good fifty to a hundred fans or so had already been standing in line. It was perfect and couldn't have gone any better than I thought it would have. At the time I didn't know any other Linkin Park fans other than Nick, except Sal. If your not familiar with who Sal is, he's been to over 40 Linkin Park shows since the dawn of time...I mean, the band's existence. Besides I think most of us had become so 'numb' (ahhh, LP humor at it's finest) the time the doors opened to MSG. As the line started moving and the closer we got to the doors everyone became quite alive. Faint probably started playing in a few fans heads and then BOOM! It was a freakin' race up a spiral walkway with escalators in between just to get to four blue doors. Security people are yelling 'No running' and dozens of fans are trying to fit through those four doorways that are really made for one person. Here's my one bit of advice if your going to a concert. The lesson here is to make sure your wearing halfway decent pants with a belt that can hold all your stuff (ex. camera), otherwise you could fall or possibly face embarrassment of your undies being exposed to everyone behind you. Thankfully no one experienced that...I think, but it is a bit hard to run and hold your pants up at the same time. So now it's time to wait in line again. Actually there were two lines and another set of escalators. A pair of security guards wave you with a magical wand and waved us forward up the stairs. There was a merch booth to the right of the entrance to the pit, but I decided it was better to hold off and wait till the end of the show to buy stuff. Finally they check your ticket once more and that was it... I was finally in Madison Square Garden... part 2 Once you get inside MSG, it's kind of magical. Not like Disney magical, but you kinda get a sense of the history that's been taken here. (After all this IS where they had the first wrestlemania, almost every NY sports team has been here at least once, the Beatles, Bon Jovi, John Lennon's final concert, the list goes on!) When you first walk into the Garden the first thing you notice is the ceiling, yes the ceiling. You look up at it and it's just amazing to stare at. I think that's when it hits you, that your a building full of history. So finally the show is about to begin. Leading off to start was Chiodos, a relatively new band invite to perform on tour. Which actually quite good. I hadn't listened to them prior to the show so I didn't know what to expect. They were pretty cool. Next in the lineup was Coheed and Cambria. While Chiodos had their set replaced with Coheeds, some huge drunk turd squeezed he way in between me and another dude who I was talking with while the pit filled up. This guy was like Barney Gumble from the Simpsons, way to drunk to stand and seeing stuff in his head, god only knows what was in there. He was screaming at some girls across the barrier and pointed at a 12 year old and said 'come here' like he was possessed. I wanted the dude gone, so while hanging on the gate covering half my face I motioned to a security guard that this dude is completely wasted. He just shook his head yes and watched him. Sigh..... So now Coheed was up. I was familiar with Coheed months prior to the show. They were awesome, yet every time I took a photo of Michael Todd, bassist, his eyes always came out evil looking. Chris Pennie, drummer, is local to where I'm from. He was part of a band called the Dillenger Escape Plan. If you've never seen Chris play drums, look him up on youtube, he plays some insanely hard stuff. When it came time for them to perform 'Welcome Home' Claudio was nice enough to jump in front of my camera to record the solo. That was freakin' sweet. You can watch the solo here: [video=vimeo;3240111]http://vimeo.com/3240111[/video] When Coheed finished the place went nuts. I wouldn't mind seeing them again if I got the chance. Finally it was time for the stage crew to set everything up for Linkin Park. Fat and Drunky was still next to me. The place was really packed now, you turn around and it's just a sea of people. From the floor it's amazing to see just how many people a venue holds. While everyone waits, the curtain goes up, sound checks are being made, you hear Brad and Phoenix's guitars and basses being checked and tuned, Rob's drums are going through one final check and the clock finally hits 9 PM. Madison Square Garden goes completely dark and before you know it...No More Sorrow begins to play... part 3 The arena went dark. Mike starts to play 'Wake' and the band works their way to the front of the stage and right in front of me for the entire show is Dave 'Phoenix' Farrell on bass. Excellent. 'Wake' ends with everyone cheering and the show starts with 'Given Up'. The crowd is screaming, jumping, and clapping. It was insane. I also come to find out that one of the DSP microphones is right dead in front of me. Linkin Park plays straight through with shoutouts to NYC and New Jersey to 'make some NOISE!' and for everyone to put there 'hands up like this!...and put em' down like that! HELL YEAH' My mind was blown for a good 15 minutes as they went through 'Wake', 'Given Up', 'Lying From You' and 'Somewhere I Belong.' The boys finally took a breather and talked to the crowd. 'What the fuck is up!', Chester yelled out and everyone goes nuts. 'Tonight's the nights, Sal's 40th fuckin LP show man, what's up...fuckin love you dude.' As 'No More Sorrow', fat and drunky to my left screams out Shadow of a day and I yell out 'Yeah, Sal!' which can both be heard on the DSP. My friend Nick says 'No More Sorrow baby, fuck yeah!' and everyone starts clapping with Rob's drums. Dave gets up on the ledge in front of us, Brad starts to play and Nick screams. The band goes on to perform 'Don't Stay' in which Chester jumps over to our side of the stage several times. They follow up that with 'Points of a Authority', which surprised me cause it sounds alot more hardcore live than it does on the album and Chester let's out the final scream for Points as they go into the bridge to 'In Pieces'. The highlight of that song is Brad's solo in which Brad is standing atop of the whole stage with a single spotlight pointed down right on top of him as the screens begin to tilt and move. That was awesome. 'In Pieces' was followed with a array of beautiful songs. 'Numb', 'My December' (ironically it was February but it did snow after the show back in Jersey. That's what you call band magic.) and 'Breaking the Habit'. From there, they start to play 'Shadow of the Day', which I had heard once before at the PNC Arts Center for Projkt Revo, but man...being down there in the pit at MSG was something else. EVERYONE was singing that song. It was an amazing sight and sound just to be there and witness that and you could hear it too. You could literally hear everyone singing, not just the band. The screens then moved in different directions once again and went from shades of blue to orange and reds as 'Crawling' began to play. Joe begins to play on the pads and smoke begins to fill around the stage from the top. Man, if you didn't feel like you were in the video! That was Incredible. Chester began to work his way down to the crowd, he started on the far left of the barricades shaking hands with each fan before reaching half way down the line to start 'In The End' and on the 2nd verse just before the chorus I finally shook hands with Chester. He keeps going down the line and makes his way just over to the right side of the stage where several fans are screaming out to shake his hand. This is the first time I ever saw band photographer Mark Fiore too. As to thinking 'why does this guy look exactly Phoenix?' I didn't know that Mark had been in the same band as Dave and since then he's become one of my favorite photographers out there. I later on in life shook hands with Mark at the ATS/Best Buy show but that's another story for another day. 'In the End' well...ends and LP leaves the stage with just Brad under a single red spotlight...then Brad starts teasing the crowd with a guitar riff that sounds rather familiar to everyone. 'A Place for my Head' When the band re-appears on the stage you can kinda tell that this is about to get REALLY heavy and Mike jumps down to the crowd to get the pit going and soon every is just going insane. There's just a sea of people jumping and moving around. Finally, the main setlist closer ends with 'One Step Closer' and the band once again leaves the stage for about 6 minutes leaving everyone in anticipation as to what's to come. The crowd is cheering 'Linkin Park' and the band enters the stage once again. Mike begins to play 'In Between' and then they follow it with 'What I've Done'. Show's over right? Yeah, right. The double encore starts. Mike and Chester up front and center when Jay-Z pops out right in front of us and the crowd is now ballistic with excitement. They perform to songs off of Collision Course, 'Numb/Encore' and 'Jigga What/Faint'. Jay's presence at MSG was huge and the crowd went nuts every time Madison Square Garden was said during 'Numb/Encore'. Chester yells out one final shoutout, 'LP-Jay-Z-New York fuckin' City!' Jay says goodbye to the Garden and walks off the stage. Last but not least Linkin Park plays one final song. 'Bleed It Out' and Rob plays a killer drum solo. They finish performing and give their final waves and goodbyes to the crowd and the show ends. It was truly, the most amazing show I had ever been to. I can't imagine what they have in store this time. --RS