A Decade for an Encore: Linkin Park Live in Malaysia 2013

Mondays may not be a lot of people’s favourite, it’s the first day of the week and the mediocrity stains throughout the nine-to-five schedule. Yet last Monday (August 19^th) is a different story. There are approximately 20,000 people, of which 5000 of it travelled overseas just for this live event, waiting eagerly for the day to come. After precisely a decade for the legends to come back to the land of multi-ethnicity in South East Asia, Linkin Park exclusively came back to yet again amuse the audience.

An hour before the set was scheduled to start, the stadium seemed post-apocalyptic. Though when seeing the entrance gates, theplace was packed with a massive line of soldiers brimming with maximum anticipation. Then as the gates were open, they all marched at once to get to the best row they could possibly access, some were even sprinting in the midst of a mild drizzle. The sight didn’t stop until the set started, the band was barely in sight but the cheering could’ve filled the whole stadium. After a tardy 40-minutes halt before the concert started, the stage finally showed signs of life with a video campaign of the band’s latest Music for Relief programme, PowerTheWorld.org as Powerless was playing. By then, the crowd was already skipping heartbeats.

The first track to open the night was ‘Faint’, even after only seconds, Linkin Park made it clear that their set would be epic. ‘Papercut’ was then played, followed by Brad being in the spotlight and started the first chords to ‘Given Up’ beneath a star-studded lighting.  Mike Shinoda then expressed how good it is to be back, continuing the set with ‘With You’ where DJ Joe Han spinned some mix. ‘Somewhere I Belong’ was shadowed with the applause of the audience all the way from the bleachers to the front rows as Chester screamed ‘‘Sama-sama Malaysia! Thank you very much, we miss you guys. I wanna hear all you guys sing along with us’’, and boy, did we sung. ‘New Divide’ was up next, and the stage was decorated from the controversial visualizations from the video. ‘Victimized’, ‘Points of Authority’ and ‘Lies Greed Misery’ were next in the playlist, the setlist design was impeccable, and the older and newer songs were fused in so intimately that the flow of the whole concert was faultless.

‘Waiting for the End’ was followed by ‘Breaking the Habit’, where frontman Chester Bennington sang intensely and seemed out of place when he stayed at one spot (you see, during the one and a half hour set, it was impossible for him to stop moving around the stage, which was quite an entertainment), pursued by ‘Castle of Glass’, their most recent single from their latest album Living Things. A personal favourite highlight of the their flawless set was the three-way mash-up of ‘Leave Out All The Rest’, ‘Shadow of the Day’ and ‘ Iridescent’, where the lightings gradually brightens up the stage hitting an utmost symphonic satisfaction. Two of the newer singles, ‘The Catalyst’ and ‘Lost in the Echo’ was delivered afterwards. The climax and the long-awaited ‘Numb’ was finally performed, convoyed with thousands of enthusiastic fanatics singing along and air-punching along to each and every beat. Stadium-venued  concerts have always had the anthemic and legendary feel compared to normal staging, where a band as regal as Linkin Park fit perfectly into the scene. ‘What I’ve Done’ was then next, followed with a closing song of One Step Closer, which sadly marks one step closer to the end of the glorious gig and the diamond-like lightings turned to abyss.The audience was still keen to demand for an encore even when the stage was desolated. The chants were showing no signs of stoping, and that was where Linkin Park made another entry back to the stage to fulfil the dynamic dreams of oh so many people. ‘Burn It Down’ and the band’s favourite song ‘In The End’ was played, then the whole set was finalized with an ambitious performance of ‘Bleed It Out’ with the crowd jumping and used up all the energy left, ‘every ounce of it’. Though the show was coming to an end, the band announced that the Malaysian gig was their last one for this year, and rest assured, soldiers, these six talented musicians are on the heave to work on new music!

Needless to say, Linkin Park live in Malaysia 2013 is among one of the best performances any band could ever deliver. The energy, the music, and the chemistry is one of those substance that can never be engineered as precisely and immaculately. Next time a Linkin Park concert comes play, even if you need to fly over to watch it, do it. The experience is worth the expense. We walked in the stadium as a fan, but walked out as a straight-up LP soldier.