back to the park

i’ll own it – i always liked linkin park…

…a girl named ‘iris’ at star tickets turned me on to them (and still owes me $50 for a ticket, but given that was twenty-one years ago i doubt that’s coming). at that show, at the now infamous bronco bowl in fort worth, texas, i was asked to remove my feet from the side of the stage by the late, great, chester bennington, who seeing my feet propped up there asked me, “do you work here or something?”

when i showed my badge that indicated that, in fact, i did (sorta) he got a lot more polite. he was talented as fuck – rip. first of three times i saw them, i believe.

seven years after chester’s unfortunate demise we have a new(ish) linkin park releasing a single last week and an album later in the fall, followed by a small tour that only has one date in the states. the surprise – the new vocalist is female. i wondered how this would play out, and what you get is what sounds like a linkin park/evanesence mashup, but she seems to have the vocal chops to scream chester’s parts on the standards. there’s also a new drummer, and maybe i’m just not a “drum guy” to that extreme, but i honestly don’t hear a difference on that front. them vocals, however…

part of me wondered if they should adopt a new name here. one of the trademarks, in my opinion, was the vocal back and forth between shinoda and bennington. but van halen kept their name through three different lead vocalists and two bassists and we were all cool with it. it would have been weird if dave grohl had named his project “nirvana” and tried to carry on since it was one of three guys, but he didn’t. he named it “foo fighters” and took over the world. four of the six are still there…that’s two thirds. that wins the playoffs in every sport.

it’s not like the abomination that is static x – trying to pretend the new guy is the old guy like you’ve just swapped out frankenstein in death race…it’s not the same.

i’ll be curious to see how the rest of the album sounds. right now, to me, after one listen, it just sounds like of the mike shinoda solo tracks with a guest vocalist feature.