Linkin Park Wows Fans With Jakarta Concert

The show was one of the final stops on the band’s A Thousand Suns world tour, which kicked off last October. After two more stops in Bangkok and Singapore, the members of Linkin Park will return home to the United States.

Wednesday night’s show was Linkin Park’s second appearance in Indonesia. It first performed here in 2004.

Fans Donie Ajo, 21, and Galang Ajieprayoga, 20, remembered being too young to attend the 2004 show in Ancol, North Jakarta. They said they lived outside the capital and they had not been allowed to skip school to go to the concert.

Galang, now a university student, said there was no way he was going to miss Wednesday’s show and the chance finally to see his favorite band play live.

“I’m even a member of LPU,” he said, referring to Linkin Park Underground, the band’s official fan club.

To pay for the concert ticket, which cost between Rp 550,000 and Rp 2.5 million ($60 and $280), Galang said he was prepared to sell his mobile phone, though it didn’t actually come to that. He said he managed to get together enough money to secure himself a good seat.

Donie, who works as a waiter, said he did not mind splashing out for a ticket. He bought one of the cheapest tickets, off to the side of the stage, and arrived at the venue early to make sure he could get a good seat.

Galang, Donie and all the other fans were rewarded with a balanced set of new material and old favorites. Linkin Park played a total of 23 songs drawn from its first three albums, “Hybrid Theory” (2000), “Meteora” (2003) and “Minutes to Midnight” (2006), as well as its newest album, “A Thousand Suns,” which was released last September.

The concert began around 8:30 p.m. with “The Requiem,” a track from the new album. When the band moved into “Papercut,” from its first album, the crowd went wild.

The band proceeded to pump up the volume with “Given Up,” from “Minutes to Midnight,” “New Divide,” which was featured on the soundtrack for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” and “Faint,” from “Meteora.”

In an interview before the show, drummer Rob Bourdon said the band always tried to pick songs that they thought would do justice to each album in its live shows. He added that the band took note of fan reactions and concert reviews after each show and tour.

“We have a few different set lists that we alternate each night, so each night we will play something different,” he said. “There are certain songs that we’ve been playing for over 10 years, but on a certain night, you can just be in the moment and really enjoy the song.”

If they ever start to feel bored playing certain hits, Bourdon said all they needed to do was look out at the audience and feed off the fans’ enthusiasm for the music.

“When you see them, it’s really hard not to be excited about it,” he said. Bourdon said the band always looked forward to playing in places like Jakarta, where audiences do not get to see a lot of international performers.

He said touring was always about finding a balance between performing and mixing music in the studio. The band is already working on new material for its fifth album. Bourdon added that the band was always writing something to keep the creative juices flowing.

He said the process of recording 2006’s “Minutes to Midnight” had brought the band to a new creative level, one that involved all of the members writing and sharing ideas and material.

“ ‘Minutes to Midnight’ is the first time we kinda broke down the box, the walls and the rules, but we had a lot of struggle to do that,” Bourdon said.

He said the band’s latest album, “A Thousand Suns,” captured this newfound synergy between the members. Bourdon also thanked producer Mike Rubin for his input on the new album.

By trying to balance the expectations of both old and new fans, Bourdon said Linkin Park was experiencing an artistic revolution as they challenged themselves to create something new. “[But] we are still the same band that made ‘Hybrid Theory’ and ‘Meteora,’ ” he said.