Concert Review: Linkin Park at the Bell Centre, February 7, 2011

I’ve just found this review of Linkin Park’s concert in Montreal online:

Some have dismissed Linkin Park’s early blend of angsty alternative rock, blustering hip hop, and chunky nu-metal as cold, clinical, marketing genius, perhaps the result of a focus group held after the autopsy of an entire demographic.

A more charitable view would be that the band is a genuine reflection not only of their own varied influences, but also those of their generation, synthesizing disparate elements of youth culture into a series of singles. Both interpretations support the California sextet’s massive success, which began with the explosive sales of their 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory. But only the latter explains the organic evolution, refinement, and expansion of their sound over the past decade, the fruits of which were on display at last night’s Bell Centre concert.

Formed as Xero in 1996, Linkin Park didn’t necessarily innovate with their early rap-rock sound, but nevertheless found an audience once Hybrid Theory’s first single One Step Closer hit MTV. 2003’s Meteora took a similar musical approach, but weighted down the guitars with some of the lead coursing through Deftones’ veins. By 2007’s Minutes to Midnight, the band had departed from their initial sound, avoiding the nu-metal, toughening up the hip hop, and emphasizing the electronica. Their latest album, 2010’s A Thousand Suns, is by far their most experimental and interesting, focusing on alternative metal blended with 80s rap and aged in a cask made of planks pried from British dance clubs floors.

To the over 13 400 enthusiastic fans in attendance last night, Linkin Park’s experimentation resulted in an eclectic yet unified setlist. Faint, from Meteora, kicked off a run of the band’s more traditional tracks. Dressed in the skinny jeans and sports jacket of a hipster butler, energetic singer Chester Bennington delivered his vocals with a more ragged edge than expected, coating his lyrics with vitriol and stomach acid. On Lying From You, rapper/rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Mike Shinoda gave his rhymes a surprising amount of muscle. Given Up—with Brad Delson’s crunchy guitars evoking White Zombie eating breakfast cereal—was next, contrasting nicely with the tragic overtones of What I’ve Done. In first-half highlight No More Sorrow, from Minutes to Midnight, drummer Rob Bourdon pounded martial rhythms into a doleful melody like a funeral march being machine gunned. Read more