The night started off with my brother Alex, four of my friends and I heading towards North Greenwich and the O2 Arena. All of us were eagerly anticipating seeing Linkin Park as each of us claims the band to be one of our favourites. We navigated our way through rush hour on the London Underground and arrived at North Greenwich at around 6pm. There was a sense of nostalgia when I arrived as I had not been to the old Millennium Dome since it was still known as that back in 2000 and I was 10 years old. 7 years on I was going to see my favourite band of all time play in this magnificently large structure and although my excitement was not apparent, I felt like it was Christmas again.
I didn’t really know what to expect inside the Dome. I was under the impression that the whole Dome was just one huge venue with a few shops and restaurants on the side. However I was dead wrong. The Arena itself is deep within the heart of the Dome and it is surrounded by an obscene amount of bars, restaurants, shops and even a Cineplex. It’s literally one huge leisure complex under one gigantic roof. After taking a moment to gaze in awe of what the Dome had become, we decided to find our way to our seating area. This proved to be a longer process than we thought. It took us about 10 minutes just to navigate our way anti-clockwise through ‘entertainment avenue’ (which, by the way, is like walking through a miniature West End street) to the section of the arena where our seats were. This put things into perspective about how big the complex is because we had only walked less than a quarter of our way round the Dome. If this wasn’t enough to convince us that the Dome was huge than arriving at the arena itself was more than enough evidence; the Arena is like a football stadium under an even bigger stadium. I kept joking that the outside of the arena bared resemblance to Arsenal Football Club’s Emirates Stadium. To be honest it wouldn’t surprise me if they actually managed to fit the Emirates underneath the complex roof as well.
We waited to get into the arena for around 15 minutes and after the usual security searches we walked up the stairs and into the lobby area and looked for our seats. As soon as we found our block we walked into the seating area and finally saw the spectacularly huge arena in all its glory. As thousands of people came pouring into the arena we took our seats and waited in anticipation. Some of us got a bit fed up of waiting by half an hour so a few of us went back into the lobby to check out some of the band merchandise that was on offer and get a few refreshments. I made a joke that the O2 arena’s fries and beer must have been real top-notch quality with the prices we paid for them.
At around 7:30 the concert started with the sole support act Biffy Clyro coming out and performing such songs as ‘Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies’. Before the concert I’d been a little bit disappointed with the selection of Biffy Clyro as the support act because I was never really into their music, plus the other support act that I did like, Julien-K, had pulled out due to personal reason, however Biffy Clyro weren’t bad at all and put on quite a decent performance. Unfortunately for them it was evident that very few people were interested in their music as 20,000 people were reasonably quiet throughout their whole set. Being a support act for a band with such a gigantic following such as Linkin Park is a tall order for anyone though and the fact that they actually put decent effort into their performance was good enough in my opinion.
After Biffy Clyros 45 minute set there was a half an hour break so to set up Linkin Park’s set. Waiting those 30 minutes was like torture because by that time I knew that I was going to experience a simply amazing show in this gigantic fortress of a venue. You could sense all the anticipation of 20,000 people in the air. I looked around and saw just how diverse Linkin Park’s fan base is in that I saw young kids, teens and middle-aged people patiently waiting for the same thing I was – an incredible show.
At 8:45 the wait was over and the lights dimmed to the roar of 20,000 people screaming for their favourite band. A creepy end of world style intro track played as the lights were directed on to a huge white curtain revealing the silhouettes of each band member. For a few moments this intro track played and then the familiar piano of ‘What I’ve Done’ began to play as the curtain dropped and the fans were ecstatic. The sound was almost perfect and my adrenaline was going crazy to the sound of this top 5 hit. Almost everyone was singing along as the noise levels were brought to a fever pitch. As soon as ‘What I’ve Done’ ended the band went straight into the fast tempo fan favourite ‘Faint’ – a song that everyone jumped up and down for. The band added an extended intro to this song in which Brad Delson performed a pulsating guitar solo that had the crowd staring in awe. ‘Faint’ was proceeded by the heavy, politically charged ‘No More Sorrow’ – an anthem in which everyone was screaming along to the words “Your time has come to be erased!”
After ‘No More Sorrow’ the band took a quick break in which front man Chester Bennington took the time to comment on how amazed he was at the size of the arena. His exact words were “Leave it to London to build the biggest, badest venue on the face of the planet”. The crowd hung on his every word. This was followed by the band performing Meteora songs ‘Somewhere I Belong’, ‘Lying From You’ and ‘From The Inside’ in succession. The band then performed a unique version of ‘Points Of Authority’ that contained a verse from ‘Petrified’, which was featured on vocalist Mike Shinoda’s hip-hop side project ‘Fort Minor’.
What followed next was simply amazing. The band performed the melodic, beautiful and political ‘Hands Held High’, which featured 20,000 people singing along to the ‘Amen’ chorus and a huge screen at the back of the set depicting silhouettes of oil pumps (I don’t think I need to signify what that was a metaphor for). In a simply amazing concert it’s hard to pinpoint highlights however this certainly was one of the key highlights of the concert.
The atmospheric Minutes To Midnight intro track ‘Wake’ came next which was quickly followed by the heavy and aggressive recent single ‘Given Up’. This song contained another key highlight of the show when front man Chester Bennington leapt into the crowd and sang while being practically mobbed by several screaming fans. What’s more is that he actually didn’t seem to be fazed by it and still managed to pull off the spectacular 16-second scream mid way through ‘Given Up’. The emotional and melodic ‘Valentines Day’ followed and then the fan-favourite, chart topping ‘Numb’. What proceeded is something I don’t think anyone would have guessed in a million years. Vocalist Mike Shinoda stayed on his keyboard and began to do a comedy cover of Rhianna’s number one single ‘Umbrella’ that had everyone singing along in amazement that the mighty alternative rock band Linkin Park was covering a Rhianna song.
‘Shadow Of The Day’, ‘Crawling’ and, perhaps the song that everyone knows Linkin Park for, ‘In The End’, followed this very strange performance. ‘Bleed It Out’ came next which featured in impressive 2-minute drum solo by drummer Rob Bourdon. This was intended to be the last song however the crowd wanted more and after 5 minutes of waiting and chanting Linkin Park Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda came out to play the beautiful piano track ‘My December’. This song had people holding their lighters and phones up in the air in appreciation. This was followed by the rest of the band coming out to play the emotional ‘Breaking The Habit’. The band then thanked everyone for coming to the show and left the stage and although some people took this opportunity to leave, most stayed and waited for a second encore. The band obliged and performed fan favourite ‘A Place For My Head’ that was then proceeded by the final song of the night and usual concert closer ‘One Step Closer’.
As the show came to an end and everyone began to leave there was a sense of awe among everyone in that they’d just seen one of the best shows they will probably ever see. I say this without trying to involve too much bias, but Linkin Park know how to put on one amazing show and I will eagerly be anticipating the next time I go and see them. One can only hope they continue putting on such awe-inspiring and fan pleasing shows for many years to come.
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