2014.08.26 - Falcon Heights, MN, Minnesota State Fair

[Southpaw262]

Just listen to Brad's answer on the Linkin Log to what his favorite songs are to play live...

[Astat]

...So, few days late, but here's part 2 of my review.

As I was saying in my last post, the two girls in front of my wife and I were only there to see AFI, and gave us their barricade spots when they left. Not sure why you'd spend nearly $100 a piece to see one band play for 45 minutes and then leave...but not complaining!

Anyway, I admittedly went into the 30 Seconds to Mars set knowing I'd hardly know anything they were playing. I know a bunch of their older stuff like Capricorn, Edge of the Earth, Attack, From Yesterday, etc., but for whatever reason they completely ignore those songs on tour these days. So I chose to just think of it as seeing a band I was completely unfamiliar with for the first time. To be honest, I came away with mixed feelings. I feel like some of the shit I've seen said about Jared Leto is warranted, and some isn't. At face value, the guy is a GREAT frontman. He does everything he possibly can to involve the fans in the performance, he's incredibly energetic on stage, and when he actually sings, he's a great singer. But he also comes off as kind of pompous (stereotypical Jesus beard/long hair, cape, AND crown? Really?), and the guy is 100% aware of how many girls in the audience want his cock, and he totally caters to them. Before the acoustic set, there was literally about a 2 minute ambient interlude that appeared to serve no purpose other than to be backing music for Leto to take his shirt off to while girls screamed as loud and high-pitched as possible (this was the ONLY reason my ears were ringing after the concert, by the way). Then when he played Hurricane, he purposely sang the "Do you really want me?" lines as drawn-out as possible, then paused afterwards EVERY SINGLE TIME to let the girls scream again. Ugh.

Still, I think the positives of 30STM's set outweighed the negatives. Leto is great at interacting with an audience, and the band played pretty much flawlessly. I was particularly impressed with Stephen Aiello. Since he's not an official member of the band and they kind of have him tucked back in the corner of the stage behind Leto's riser where you can barely see him, I figured he'd just quietly add his parts to the performance and try to be as invisible as possible. Not so! The guy was rocking the FUCK out every time I saw him! Headbanging, slamming his bass from side to side while he was playing, singing his heart out on his backing vocal parts, the guy was a blast to watch. I think he was more into the performance than Tomo was! As for the set itself, there were a bunch of "do you remember when..." type moments that my wife and I kept talking about afterwards. Literally during the first 30 seconds of Up in the Air, a big flock of birds flew over the venue in formation, and Leto immediately looked up to the sky and pointed it out. During Search and Destroy, Leto did an extended break before the last chorus where he tried to get everybody jumping. He started the last chorus...then stopped the entire band like something was wrong. He then proceeded to point out one guy in the crowd who wasn't jumping. "Dude in the blue shirt...you're breaking my heart, man. Who's that girl next to you, is that your girlfriend? She looks embarrassed. Dude, you're not getting laid for like a month after this." He then restarted that part of the song, and made that one guy start jumping up and down before he'd finish the song! The standard balloons filled with water were released into the crowd near the end of This is War...and we got so preoccupied with bouncing them around, I literally don't even remember what the next song (Conquistador) sounded like! It was around this point that I noticed Brad Delson watching the performance from Tomo's side of the stage. He hung out there for 2 or 3 songs, then disappeared. During Kings and Queens, Leto jumped down into the crowd from the catwalk part of the stage, then he kind of disappeared for part of the song, but you could still hear him singing. He then reappeared ALL THE WAY BACK IN THE GRANDSTANDS, climbing over the railing, then running up and down the rows of seats. I have NO CLUE how he got all the way back there. I could see it if he had gone AROUND the crowd, but it looked like he just ran through the middle of the pit and managed to get to the back. Crazy. He did go around the audience when he came back, and used the backstage entrance to get back on stage. During Do or Die, he asked if people wanted to get on stage and to climb on someone's shoulders if you did...but he didn't pull anyone on stage at that point? Not sure what he was trying to accomplish there. During the acoustic set, something hilarious happened: One of the larger fair rides right behind the grandstand got stuck (it was a SkyScraper ride - look it up if you want), leaving a rider stuck at the top by himself for about 20 minutes. Leto noticed this and started talking about it, he even got the camera crew to zoom in on him and project it on the big screens. He then said something like "Hey dude, if you can hear us from over there, give me like 3 or 4 kicks with your feet!" The guy actually started kicking, and EVERYONE went nuts! The rest of the set was pretty uneventful. Great acoustic performance of The Kill, Leto barely sang any of it because he didn't have to, EVERYONE was singing. The Cowboys From Hell jam while the fans were brought up on stage for the last song was great. I don't think there were too many Pantera fans in the house, but it was hilarious hearing 30STM jamming on about the most un-30STM-like song you can think of! As for the fans on stage, it's kind of cool, but I feel like it's kind of rigged. Probably 80% of the fans up there weren't pulled from the audience, they all came walking out from backstage...and most of them were girls dressed like Leto groupies. Imagine that...*rolls eyes* Being right at the front, the confetti at the end of Closer to the Edge went off RIGHT IN OUR FACES, and it was hilarious. I got some great pictures of that stuff. I've seen KISS live 3 times, and I think the amount of confetti 30STM shoots off rivals how much they use. It's nuts.

So yeah, pretty solid performance, just wish they would've played some stuff from their first 2 albums that I actually would have known. I literally only knew Kings and Queens, This is War, and The Kill. And it's not like I'm oblivious to 30STM's existence, I own their first 2 CDs. They could've played something like Savior and I would have known it just as well as The Kill. The band sounded good, Leto was just very hit or miss. He provided some of the coolest moments of the show, but also some of the most cringe-worthy ones. As an aside, since I didn't know a lot of the material, I spent part of 30STM's set watching Benjamin Chandler (Brad's new guitar tech) tuning up Brad's guitars at the side of the stage. I even snapped a picture of him, lol. This was when I discovered just how strange of an experience being on the barricade can be. During one of the quieter parts of the 30STM set, I kept hearing this weird metallic plinking noise coming from my left. After a few seconds, I realized it was Benjamin strumming one of Brad's guitars...without it being plugged in! When you're that close, you can literally hear him hitting the strings. It was bizarre as hell, and it made me realize just how quiet of a show this really was. It was loud ENOUGH, but I was right in front of a stack of giant JBL subwoofers and I never heard any kind of noise from any of the 3 bands that I would describe as "ear-ringingly loud." Again, the only uncomfortable sensation my ears dealt with all night was high-pitched screaming from some of the girls around me.

...Again, long-ass post. Review of the LP set will be next.

[RogueSoul]

Awesome review, glad to see you somewhat enjoyed MARS's set haha. I also think his crown bullshit needs to stop, I don't really see any point of it rather than screaming "I AM A ROCK GOD!" (which, he really isn't.) He calls it his 'battlegear', and he doesn't really take it off until This Is War or Conquistador, which is pretty weird. Their setlists suck, lol. They really do need to add more of the older songs in. They played a lot of older songs at their soundchecks in Europe, and they even played A Beautiful Lie once in France. They really do have a lot to improve but I do love their shows in the end.

[Geki]

Jared Leto doesn't have the right to refer to himself as a ''rock god'' when Chester Bennington is on the same tour. That is just a slap in the face right there.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Geki

[thedamian58c]

I also think his crown bullshit needs to stop, I don't really see any point of it rather than screaming "I AM A ROCK GOD!" (which, he really isn't.) He calls it his 'battlegear', and he doesn't really take it off until This Is War or Conquistador, which is pretty weird. Their setlists suck, lol. They really do need to add more of the older songs in. They played a lot of older songs at their soundchecks in Europe, and they even played A Beautiful Lie once in France. They really do have a lot to improve but I do love their shows in the end.

Wowowow, This can not be Soul, but if it is, then Jared would be very sad to hear this...

[RogueSoul]

Wowowow, This can not be Soul, but if it is, then Jared would be very sad to hear this...

Just because he's my idol doesn't mean I can't criticize him

[thedamian58c]

Just because he's my idol doesn't mean I can't criticize him

You know, it's a bit shocking, it's almost like hearing joe_lp liking LT

[Southpaw262]

Great review Anthony! It was nice to meet you in person. Had I not talked to you, I probably would have been way in the back.

[BIBBLE]

Yeah I'm enjoying reading these reviews.

[Astat]

Alright, finally getting around to my LP review. I'm gonna split this one up by song.

Pre-Show: I have to say, the LP crew really has their shit together with the new stage setup now, despite the first few shows of the cycle being pretty rough. They got everything moved into place REALLY fast, and they hardly had to spend any time playing with anything to get it how they wanted it. They pretty much just made sure everything was on and working, and within a few minutes, they were gone. Also, there were a couple MASSIVE douchebags around us who kept shoving and trying to get to the front. My poor 5'4 " wife was basically getting crushed between one of said douchebags (a guy who was almost a foot taller than her and looked like a football player) and me (I'm 6 feet and about 180 pounds, so I'm not small myself). People were getting really pissed off about it, and I swore a fight was about to break out, but the house lights happened to go out at a good time and everybody seemed to forget about it and get excited about the show. Also, here's a funny one: The same douchebag was trying to be all nice and conversational and pretending other people were shoving him into my wife. He was trying to talk to me about what a "huge Linkin Park fan" he was. I could smell the bullshit all over him, so I asked him what his favorite song was. "Uhh...In the End." Then I asked him what his favorite song off the new album was. "They have a new album...? OH! You mean the one with You Don't Know What You've Got Until It's Gone on it? Yeah, that's the only good song on there." I immediately knew that this guy didn't know jack shit about this band outside of the songs that Clear Channel hand-picks to broadcast on mainstream radio, so I asked him what the title of the new album was. He said he couldn't remember. Yeah. I made sure to glance at the guy out of the corner of my eye throughout the show, and I think I saw him singing the words to 2 songs all night: In the End and Numb. For the rest of the night, he was PRETENDING to sing along by just moving his lips in approximate rhythm to the rest of the songs.

Some people really don't belong at concerts. Or in public places, period. If you were the guy in the Crown Royal t-shirt trying to bully your way into the front row all night, yes, I'm talking about you. Kindly go fuck yourself, sir.


Moving on...

Mashup Intro #2/Guilty All the Same: I literally couldn't hear any of the intro except for about the last 10 seconds or so where the Guilty All the Same drums/guitar samples start fading in. Crowd was going nuts. Guilty All the Same kicked in...and nobody knew it. Solid performance, Mike and Chester were all over the stage, Brad even seemed relatively into it, and everything seemed to go off without a hitch. During the outro, I noticed that Benjamin was actually doing the wah effects with an expression pedal from offstage, I always figured it was just an auto-wah kind of effect. The more you know...

Given Up: This song's getting really rough live these days, but it works pretty well in the #2 slot in the set. People seem to like it. I was pretty jacked up on adrenaline at this point, and when Chester took his little break in the middle of the bridge scream, I kept going. I think I hit about 13 or 14 seconds out of the 17-ish seconds the album version goes on for. And I'm not even a screamer! My throat regretted that one the next day...also, a funny thing happened during this song. Mike came over to our side of the stage, and he was kind of panning from one side to the other, like he was surveying the front row of the crowd. He looked past me, looked down a couple more people, stopped, then looked back at me again. I'm not sure if he recognized me or if this was when he just noticed my Fort Minor t-shirt, but it was kind of weird. It was about as obvious of a "wait a minute..." *DOUBLE TAKE* moment as I've ever seen from someone!

With You: I honestly couldn't hear a lot of the sampled intros to songs throughout the night, so I have no idea how "shortened" the intro to this one is now. I could tell it kicked in sooner than I was expecting it to, but I couldn't actually hear it. Not a bad performance of this one, people always seem to go nuts for the "ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hahn!" thing Mike's been doing before the bridge for years. Not sure why, because nobody gave a shit about Joe's solo later in the set, but more on that later...

One Step Closer: "Do we have any Hybrid Theory fans in the house?" ...You just played a song off of Hybrid Theory, Mike, but whatever. People went nuts anyway. Crowd had seemed mediocre up to this point, but they blew the FUCK up once this song kicked in. Everyone was jumping, and this was the point in the set where I started noticing just how loud everyone around me was singing. Chester held out the really high "shut up when I'm talking to YOUUUUUUUUUUUU" scream at the end of the extended outro FOREVER, which was probably his coolest moment of the night. That note is a high C#, which is pretty much the highest note I'm aware of Chester ever hitting full-voice in a live environment. They always throw some delay on it to make it sound like it goes on longer, but he legit held that note for 5 or 6 seconds. Impressive.

Blackout: THE LIGHTING IS SO FUCKING COOL DURING THIS SONG. Lots of people clapping during the intro part, and I think quite a few of them were confused when it wasn't the full song. It's kind of weird seeing Brad play guitar on this one now...it's even weirder that he seems to have so much fun doing it when he's literally playing one note! Guy is seriously the WEIRDEST guitar player I've ever seen, lol.

Papercut: Another one that would've blown the roof off the place if it hadn't been outdoors. I literally couldn't hear Mike and Chester singing the bridge, people were SO LOUD. I think it was after this song that Mike commented on that. Shortening this song really bums me out because it's always been SO GOOD live.

Rebellion: This was the point in the set where things started getting questionable. People REALLY don't know the THP songs at all. Mike and Chester's vocals on this one always sound pretty good live (Chester was ROLLING on the bridge, best screams he did all night), but Brad plays the guitar on this one totally different from how Daron recorded it. It doesn't sound BAD necessarily, but it's definitely lacking the punch that it has on the album. This is also the point in the set where Brad seems to really lose interest. He was great through Papercut, but then on Rebellion he just wanders aimlessly around the stage the entire time and doesn't really even look out to the crowd at all. I've seen him do this on just about every performance of the song so far. Also, has anybody else noticed that Rob seems to have a lot of trouble with one of the drum fills in the intro on this song? He kind of stumbled over it at this show, and I've heard him do it at several others too. I know this is one of his tougher songs, but it's weird to hear him consistently struggle with anything. I LOVE this song, I just wish it translated better live.

Runaway: Surprisingly loud crowd reaction for this one, maybe it was just because it was a song they actually knew...I personally don't care much for this one and could totally live without it being part of the set. I caught Mike's eye a second time on this one when I was literally the only person in the front row (at least in my area) that knew the words to the Wastelands rap on the outro transition. #likeaboss

Wastelands: Again, nobody knew this song. I'm not the biggest fan of it myself, either. On top of that, I think it just translates poorly live, even more so than Rebellion. Chester doesn't sing the high notes on "disappears" in the chorus most of the time, the drum samples during the quiet part at the start of the last chorus are completely missing (they had this same problem with the bridge of When They Come for Me years ago and never fixed that either!), and it just sounds...sloppy. They could swap this one out for War and I'd call it a huge improvement.

Castle of Glass Experience: I'll admit without any shame that I actually LOVE this version of the song, it sounds SO much better than any of their attempts at playing the album version ever did. The guitar never sounded right, the harmonies never sounded right, and it never seemed to have much energy. They fixed all that with this version. The crowd really got into this one too and started jumping like crazy! My biggest gripe with this one...Brad ALWAYS plays with his back to the audience once his guitar part comes in near the end. It's really quiet in the mix so I can never pick out what he's playing, but I can never SEE what he's playing either! Most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with in trying to figure out an LP guitar part. If anybody finds a video that actually shows him clearly at the end, let me know (or if you're going to an upcoming show, try to film him for me)!

LOATR/SOTD/Iridescent: My opinion of this medley changed somewhat after finally seeing it live. I still think it kills the energy in the middle of the set, but I was really surprised by how many people sang along to all 3 songs. Cell phones lighting up the place, and I even saw a few people who still went old-school with the lighters! Also, 2 of the 3 songs in this medley (LOATR and Iridescent) fall into the category of "LP songs that I actually connect with emotionally," which doesn't happen with too many songs. I legit started getting choked up singing along on this one, and I'm really not sure why because that NEVER happens. The band really performed this one well, too. They seem to have turned down the backing track on the Iridescent vocals a lot, I could actually hear the live vocals pretty well for a change. Brad cracked me up near the end, he walked away from his microphone while he was singing, wandered around for a little bit, then came back and sang some more. I don't even know why he bothers, I'm not even sure if his mic is even on!

Robot Boy: I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that part of this song finally showed up in a live set. I really like how it sounds, but it seems kind of unnecessary when the only person who does anything on it is Mike. At least on Blackout, you have Joe doing samples, Brad playing guitar, Phoenix playing the Z-Tar thing, etc...this just comes off as filler. Also, Mike hit a few really off-key notes during the end synth solo at this show.

Joe Solo: This was the absolute lowest point in the show in terms of "crowd giving no fucks." EVERYONE just stood there. I felt really bad for Joe. Weird that people go nuts for Joe on With You and love the dance-y remix of COG, but are completely indifferent to this. Also, this was when it became obvious that they weren't using the cages on Joe/Rob's risers at this show.

Numb: Great crowd reaction as always on this one...I'm still in the "hate this song but don't mind it being played live" boat. JOE PLAYED THE SAMPLES RIGHT FOR ONCE! *golf clap* Otherwise, uneventful performance. People loved the Encore bit at the end.

Waiting For the End: APACHES IS SO FILTHY IT'S RIDICULOUS. Making that one TINY change to the intro where the drums don't start until the downbeat after Mike comes in made it a hundred times better. Again, I was probably the only person around me who knew the words to it. People love WFTE itself though. Unfortunately, I have 2 big problems with WFTE on this tour: Ever since the start of this touring cycle, Mike's guitar part hasn't had the octave up effect on it that it's supposed to have. They're still running a HOG2 in Brad's rig for GATS and the bridge of LITE, so I'm not sure why they aren't using it on Mike's guitar for this song. Sounds totally weird without it. Also, has anybody else noticed that Chester can never stay on time with his vocals during the extended outro? Him and Rob ALWAYS seem to get out of sync with each other, which is weird because it never really happened on the Living Things tour. Still, I love this song, it's probably the most live-friendly one on ATS.

Final Masquerade: This one had its fair share of problems. Mike sang the chorus harmonies during the first chorus when he wasn't supposed to, but even worse, Brad totally BOMBED the guitar parts at a couple different points. People seemed a little more into this one than they were for Rebellion/Wastelands, but they still didn't really know it. The stage production on this one is great, and I'm sure the song sounds great when they actually play it right. Didn't happen on this night, though.

Mike Solo: Really not sure what happened at the start of this one. Mike was doing his thing with the Maschine pads, then he got this really confused look on his face a couple bars from the "pause" before the Wretches verse kicked in. I think he was out of sync with the click track or something. The pads seemed to be playing the right sounds, but Mike looked totally lost. He held up his finger while looking off to the side of the stage (presumably towards Tater), like he was saying "wait a minute." The Wretches backing track actually started up anyway and played for a couple bars before it abruptly cut off. A bunch of people booed, poor Mike. He started up again, played a shortened version of the intro, then went into the Wretches verse. Really not sure why Mike's doing a hybrid of the lyrics from the two verses...then again, he always screwed up the lyrics to the full song on the ATS tour too. He probably doesn't even realize it (just like how he did verse 1 of Petrified wrong for most of the MTM cycle). Right before the RTN verse, he acknowledged the screwup at the beginning with "That's what you get for a fucking live show, right?" then he asked "do we have any Fort Minor fans in the house?" as he was walking down towards the catwalk. He stopped halfway, turned towards my side of the stage, pointed at me, and said, "I see you in the Fort Minor shirt on in the front, you ready to go?" People around me gave a big cheer of approval, I just kind of laughed because truth be told...I'm not a big Fort Minor fan! I just wanted to wear something "LP-related" to the show that wasn't an LP t-shirt like a thousand other people would be wearing. It got me noticed though, so mission accomplished, I guess? The outro transition into DOYS/LFY actually went smoothly for a change at this show!

DOYS/LFY: This was a lot better than at most previous Set B shows I've seen. Like I said, the intro transition went off without a hitch, and Joe actually played most of the Jay-Z vocal samples in time with the song this time. They also didn't totally drown out Mike on the bridge for once! Still, I think this one could use a little more refining. It's ALMOST amazing, but it sounds like they could have rehearsed it a little more. Still, people loved hearing some Collision Course-esque stuff.

Somewhere I Belong: PEOPLE WENT NUTS when the intro to this one kicked in! I couldn't believe it. Even going back to the Meteora touring cycle, people always seemed indifferent to this one compared to Faint, Numb, and BTH. I figured that was a big part of why they dropped it for a few years, and it didn't seem to be a fan favorite on the Living Things cycle either, but the place BLEW UP on this one! Perplexing, but I'm not complaining. Song sounded great, although it did seem really weird hearing it this late in the set.

In the End: They DEFINITELY re-recorded all of the string samples on this song for this tour. They sound nothing like they used to. As expected, this song got the biggest crowd reaction of the night, and we sang the FUCK out of the bridge. Probably my favorite ITE performance of the 5 shows I've been to.

Faint: I feel like this song in its current form has really outstayed its welcome. The extended outro is SO BAD these days (how has Brad managed to consistently get WORSE at playing a solo he's been doing for 7 fucking years?), and people don't go nuts for this song as much as they used to. I think it's time to start playing the album version again and move it up to the early part of the set, maybe swap positions with OSC.

Encore break: I couldn't help but laugh at how many people were chanting "ONE MORE SONG" throughout the encore, knowing that LP was going to come back out and essentially do a 4-song medley followed by 2 more full songs. Pleased to see hardly anybody left though!

Burn it Down: Decent crowd reaction, decent performance...uneventful. Chester's gotten a little better about the "ERRRRRRP" these days. Didn't really mind this one being shortened.

Lost in the Echo: Seeing this song shortened THIS much really bums me out. It's a better live song than everything else they've played off of Living Things combined. It also occurred to me that I missed out on the Living Things touring cycle, and even after seeing this show, I've STILL never seen them play any songs from that album in full. What little of this song was played sounded pretty good, and people got pretty into it.

New Divide: This song's really gone downhill live over the past few years. People still go nuts for it, but the whole band seems to phone this one in. Night and day difference between this show and when I saw them play it at the Xcel Center in 2011. Brad also played literally this ENTIRE song standing in one place with his back to the audience. Quite possibly the most unprofessional thing I've ever seen from a "professional" musician on stage. I just got the vibe that the whole band wanted to get through this one as quickly as possible and move on to the next song.

Until It's Gone: I've made it abundantly clear how idiotic I find the shortening of this song to be. It's the only song off THP that most people in the audience know, AND it translates the best live of any of the 5 songs they play from the album. There's no reason to shorten it. And this is coming from somebody who pretty much hates the song! Pretty decent performance of what they did play though, Brad tried to improvise a little bit on the solo and it didn't come out particularly great. The POA rap intro was kind of neat but didn't seem necessary, I'd rather see that dropped in favor of playing this song or Papercut in full.

What I've Done: I'm convinced that the band literally forgot how the normal intro to this song goes. The ticking intro goes on for LONGER than the album version intro, but Mike still can't play the correct number of repeats of the piano intro? Blah. Second best crowd reaction of the night was on this song though, and outside of the weird intro, it sounded really good. Brad's solo wasn't as good as it was at some other performances lately, seemed like he tried a couple different things that didn't quite work. It also sounded like his guitar may have even cut out for a second or two. Also, something REALLY funny happened during the second verse, Brad threw a pick out into the audience...and realized he didn't have any more! Phoenix happened to be over on the same side of the stage and offered Brad one of his picks...Brad apparently didn't want to use a pick with Phoenix's face on it, because he just threw it away and laughed. Phoenix looked sad! Brad ended up running offstage for a second and getting more picks from Benjamin. I shot a short video of Brad's solo but that was about the only video I took all night. Being in the front row, security was REALLY tight on video. A guy got thrown out like 2 songs into AFI's set for taking video. I guess they were just immediately going after anybody who had their camera up for more than a minute or so.

Bleed it Out: This one's still good as a closer, but it's lost a bit of its strength over the last couple years. The best part is Rob's solo, because he has gotten INSANELY good on this tour. After the drum solo, Chester said something about there being a dance party backstage, which was confusing to us at the time...until we saw the Chideo they filmed backstage during Rob's solo! I'm not sure if the Mike/Brad guitar jam on the progresion from The Catalyst prior to the singalong part was new at this show, but it wasn't something I was expecting/aware of happening before. It's still a fun song to go home to, I just wish the band was still as into it as they were in 2007-2008.

Fireworks after the show were cool, and who did I run into when I turned around at the end of the show but Lonewolf818 again! They used the bluegrass version of Crawling as the outro music at this show (it's not the Frat Party version by Bryson Jones, it's probably from the bluegrass tribute album that came out a few years ago). I almost caught a guitar pick from Joe AND a drum stick from Rob, but the pick curved to the side as it came towards me, and the drum stick went maybe a foot over my outstretched arm. A young girl next to me dropped her pick from Phoenix over the edge of the barricade right as we were leaving, and I helped security find it for her. I could've grabbed it myself, I saw it before security did. I didn't want to be "that guy" though. Overall, easily my favorite show I've been to just based on the experience of being on the barricade. In terms of the performance, I probably still like the 2004 Projekt Revolution show the best, but this one's probably second.

I'll be posting my pictures from the show soon.

[[AndOne]]

 

Wastelands: Again, nobody knew this song.

How is that even possible? They play this song a billion times throughout the day with the IAVA trailer/video. When we were in West Palm Beach we were sure the people would either know the words to the song by the end of the day or just totally hate it.

 

 

Faint: [...] I think it's time to start playing the album version again and move it up to the early part of the set, maybe swap positions with OSC.

 

What I noticed is that the people go absolutely nuts during these songs but they have NO IDEA at all what to when the extended part of the songs kicks in. They just stop moving and don't know what to do, Is it so hard to improvise?

 

 

A guy got thrown out like 2 songs into AFI's set for taking video. I guess they were just immediately going after anybody who had their camera up for more than a minute or so.

Was that local venue security? I'm pretty sure LP's security doesn't give a shit.

[Coizu]

It's kind of weird seeing Brad play guitar on this one now...it's even weirder that he seems to have so much fun doing it when he's literally playing one note! Guy is seriously the WEIRDEST guitar player I've ever seen, lol.

I remember that he had so much fun playing one key on WFTE. Don't know if he still enjoys it that much but he IS pretty weird :-D

[Astat]

Was that local venue security? I'm pretty sure LP's security doesn't give a shit.

Yeah. I hardly even saw any LP crew between the barricade and the stage all night. Lorenzo was walking around for a little bit between sets, and I saw one guy walking around in a Honda Civic Tour t-shirt a couple times. Otherwise it was all local guys. I even asked the ticket office what the camera policy was before doors opened, and they said no flash, no video, point-and-shoot cameras only.

[Geki]

Certain venues just have different security. Some are cool, some aren't. When I saw STP with Chester last year at the House Of Blues in Boston, the security guy was the biggest asshole ever. I liked the venue and show, but seriously, he was kicking people out that were waiting IN LINE before the show for very minor things. Also, if you took pics or video during the show with your phone or camera, you got thrown out, at least the people in the front did.

[Astat]

The security guys were actually really cool at this show, they were giving out candy and water to people in the front, they'd chat with us during set changes/LP's encore break, when 30STM released their balloons they were batting them around just like the rest of the audience. I think that camera policy is uniform across all of the MN State Fair concerts. I know LP's crew doesn't care, but I don't think they go out of their way to inform the venues to allow video either.

[Geki]

The security guys were actually really cool at this show, they were giving out candy and water to people in the front, they'd chat with us during set changes/LP's encore break, when 30STM released their balloons they were batting them around just like the rest of the audience. I think that camera policy is uniform across all of the MN State Fair concerts. I know LP's crew doesn't care, but I don't think they go out of their way to inform the venues to allow video either.

 

That's really cool that they were giving out candy and water and interacting with the show, etc. The guards were sort of like that in Wantagh, and I wasn't up front at any of the other shows on this tour, so I don't know if they were like that. Wantagh was pretty cool though, I'm sure Chester wouldn't have wanted to bring his children on stage if the crowd and venue weren't cool. But yeah, that STP show, the security was outrageous. Kicked my friend out of line and wouldn't let him in because ''he was drunk'' even though we had no alcohol at all and it was because he sat down on the ground instead of stood and waited like the rest of the people in line. I was shocked. Then he was yelling at people for just having fun, stuff like what LPxDC did with the bottles of beer thing at NYC 2010 and the Lady Gaga thing, etc. I mean seriously? And during the show, if someone takes a picture or a short video, what is the big deal? They were very aggressive and would literally just pull people out of the crowd, there were a lot of arguments, etc.

[Southpaw262]

Fireworks after the show were cool, and who did I run into when I turned around at the end of the show but Lonewolf818 again!

I realized not long afterwards I forgot to tell you my name. It's Benjamin, by the way.

Great show review! Wow, you sure paid attention to a lot of stuff.

[hahninator]

Faint: I feel like this song in its current form has really outstayed its welcome. The extended outro is SO BAD these days (how has Brad managed to consistently get WORSE at playing a solo he's been doing for 7 fucking years?), and people don't go nuts for this song as much as they used to. I think it's time to start playing the album version again and move it up to the early part of the set, maybe swap positions with OSC.

 

No, definitely not in my opinion. Faint blew the fucking place apart at all 9 shows I saw it at and the outro might be my favorite part of the setlist next to the OSC outro. I go absolutely insane on the Faint outro. Can't hear Brad because I am too busy exploding lol. If they drop that outro I will be seriously disappointed.

[ChuckCheese]

Faint is still really great, the crowd really really goes nuts for it.

[[AndOne]]

I thought that I already replied to this yesterday but it sees like I forgot to hit the post button... Anyway, the crowd goes really crazy for OSC and Faint but it's always so funny to watch as soon as the extended parts kick in they have NO IDEA what to do. They just stop moving. I mean those extended outros are not that new, even RTR has them (and the DSPs), is it so hard to improvise just a little?

 

On a side note, we had our own little encounter with security in Charlotte, where they banned us from the pit and the entire concourse for trying to enter the pit with our venue working passes. They exploded on us, Mark was already somewhere in the pit (it was during 30STM's set, the part with the balloons in the crowd) and they sent like 3 security guards after him to remove him.

[Southpaw262]

No, definitely not in my opinion. Faint blew the fucking place apart at all 9 shows I saw it at and the outro might be my favorite part of the setlist next to the OSC outro. If they drop that outro I will be seriously disappointed.

I agree with you. If LP played only studio versions of their songs, it would get stale quick. Faint and One Step Closer extended are really great, and add more energy to them.

 

Most of the show, people were just moving their arm in the air to the songs. Definitely more crowd participation during 30STM. I'm jumping to LP songs when everyone around is standing still. I'm sure LP must be disappointed with their crowd reactions. It's basically like the majority of the crowd was there just for Hybrid Theory and Meteora.

[Astat]

I thought that I already replied to this yesterday but it sees like I forgot to hit the post button... Anyway, the crowd goes really crazy for OSC and Faint but it's always so funny to watch as soon as the extended parts kick in they have NO IDEA what to do. They just stop moving. I mean those extended outros are not that new, even RTR has them (and the DSPs), is it so hard to improvise just a little?

 

On a side note, we had our own little encounter with security in Charlotte, where they banned us from the pit and the entire concourse for trying to enter the pit with our venue working passes. They exploded on us, Mark was already somewhere in the pit (it was during 30STM's set, the part with the balloons in the crowd) and they sent like 3 security guards after him to remove him.

Aren't venue working passes supposed to like...get you anywhere in the venue?

[ChuckCheese]

We barely got pit for the shows on this tour with our working passes.

[hahninator]

We got our fucking asses kicked with venue working passes. Those are completely different than band working passes. LP's band working passes get you anywhere. Amphitheatre working passes get you to lawn, the concourses and the walkways between sections. You cannot get into the pit with them. Arenas generally let you on the floor with venue working passes but not always and even MSG doesn't let LP working passes on the floor there. It's up to the venue.

For most shows this tour we got either a venue working pass or a general admission wristband which put us on the lawn. The venue working pass got us raped by the security. When we had pit, we were given the pit wristbands, but otherwise we were screwed. We only had pit in Bristow, Camden and Mansfield. They didn't let us in West Palm Beach, Charlotte, or Wantagh. Tampa was a baseball stadium and we got to the general section of the floor of course, but we pretty much snuck into the VIP floor area up front. Charlotte our venue working passes originally got us to the pit but then they randomly decided in the middle of 30STM that that didn't apply anymore so they literally hunted me out of the pit, kicked the rest of them out and sent 5+ people running after Preston to find him even though he was elsewhere in the venue to make sure he wasn't going to try to get back in to the pit, LOL. And Holmdel of course there was no pit. I was sure in Wantagh we'd get it because the pit there is huge now and there's a large EMPTY section between the pit and the seats (because the pit wasn't full)....not sure why they wouldn't put us there. In 2012 we got crucified at Wantagh with our venue passes (they wouldn't even let us leave the concourse LOL).