On music, connections, and Linkin Park

Let's talk about something other than hockey today.

Because this is my space, and I can write what I want, we are going to take a quick detour and talk about music this week.

No, this is not about Taylor Swift. Although her quote this week from her now world-famous podcast, “think of your energy as if it's expensive, as if it's like a luxury item. Not everyone can afford it,” is a pretty good mantra for anyone who’s ever worked in a creative field.

This is about my favorite band, the one that I discovered in high school, and last night I went to go see for the second time this year with two of my best friends.

Assuming you read the title of this piece, you’ll know I’m talking about Linkin Park, which performed last night at Little Caesars Arena.

As a quick backstory, I moved from New Jersey to Michigan in the spring of my freshman year of high school. I didn’t know anyone, and as far as I could remember, I had really never been further west than Pennsylvania before that in my life.

When I found out I was moving I did my best to be very brave about it, but there was a lot of frustration and hidden resentment about the situation.

I had moved before when I was a kid, between first and second grade. Then my best friend from elementary school went to a different middle school, effectively ending that friendship, and now after a couple years of finding additional close friends, I was going to lose them as well.

It sucked. I didn’t say much about it out loud at the time because, well, my entire family was moving from New Jersey to Michigan and I wasn’t great about sharing my feelings out loud.

I was the picture of friendly and courteous on the surface, but was really nothing more than a brooding, angsty teen beneath, convinced any close friendship I ever built would eventually be broken by someone moving¹.

Think about that background, and you’ll understand why I connected so much with a band whose albums heavily touched on topics like alienation and internal suffering and confusion. It was exactly the type of music I needed in my life as a then 15-year-old, something that made me feel like I wasn’t the only one dealing with frustrating internal feelings.

Linkin Park’s albums “Hybrid Theory” and “Meteora” became my personal soundtrack, the first things I downloaded onto an iPod Nano I got when I was 16 or 17, alongside Fort Minor’s “The Rising Tide,” a side project by Mike Shinoda.

Fast forward roughly two decades and I had never seen the band in person, in fact, I had accepted I’d never see them play, assuming there would never be an opportunity after the lead singer, Chester Bennington, passed in 2017 by suicide².

Then, about 11 months ago Linkin Park resurfaced, with a live streamed concert on Sept. 5, 2024, revealing a new lead singer, Emily Armstrong, a new album, “From Zero,” and a new world tour.

Me and my two best friends in Michigan, Craig and Kevin — the people that really helped me find some peace in high school after I felt very much like a vagabond — quickly bought tickets to both shows in Michigan, back on May 1 in Grand Rapids at Van Andel Arena and last night, August 14, in Detroit.

I’ve become better about sharing my emotions, both in-person and in writing, and I teared up, happily, at various times during both concerts. There’s something both heavy and weightless at the same time, singing along to songs you’ve known by heart for years, but never thought you’d ever hear live.

The Grand Rapids show, again back in May, was also a bit of system shock to start. While Linkin Park did play songs from their new album, recorded with Emily Armstrong, the majority of the setlist is the catalogue from before Chester Bennington passed.

Crawling, for example, has and will always remain a song where I’ll hear Chester’s voice. The first time hearing someone else sing it, alongside Mike Shinoda, is pretty jarring.

But after that initial shock, the reminder of what happened, it starts to feel more like a living tribute, a sort of healing that the band is back together, than a forced replacement.

Personally I think Linkin Park made the right decision with Emily Armstrong. They found a way to keep the soul of the band, without trying to use a pure voice double for Chester³.

As for the show itself, it was awesome. They opened with Somewhere I Belong, which is really fitting for me and my personal journey with their music, and played, I believe, 28 songs over the course two hours.

Numb is one of my favorite songs, that was powerful. The close out of Heavy Is The Crown right into Bleed It Out is a perfect encapsulation of the band both embracing a new era, with Emily as the lead vocalist, and staying true to the group’s history and soul it had with Chester.

Anywho, here’s some video of the concert. I was pretty intentional about only having the phone out every four or five songs, trying to find that happy medium of having something to take home as a digital memory, but also living in the moment at the same time.

1. These are some things that now, as an adult, you gain new perspective of. But at the time, yeah, it wasn’t easy.

2. In hindsight, learning about many of the demons that Chester dealt with him himself, many of those early songs feel even more powerful.

3. See: Arnel Pineda replacement of Steve Perry for Journey.