2018.05.12 - Los Angeles, CA (KROQ Weenie Roast + Identity LA)

[Broman]

I'm always confused when people say Chester's singing from the THP era was worse than the OML era. I always thought he did way better in 2014 (apart from his performances of New Divide). Is there some secret performance I missed out where Chester did absolutely terrible?

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

Blizzcon was so bad

[wesleylpbr]

Blizzcon was so bad

 

yes, he was sick. but his screams were amazing!

 

 

I'm always confused when people say Chester's singing from the THP era was worse than the OML era. I always thought he did way better in 2014 (apart from his performances of New Divide). Is there some secret performance I missed out where Chester did absolutely terrible?

I think Chester was really awesome in the beginning of THP era. look at the Comic Con show!

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by wesleylpbr

[RentEznor]

I'm always confused when people say Chester's singing from the THP era was worse than the OML era. I always thought he did way better in 2014 (apart from his performances of New Divide). Is there some secret performance I missed out where Chester did absolutely terrible?

 

Some people have been trashing Chester's voice since MTM because they expected him to always scream until the end of time. They made up some shit to justify his absence of screaming (wich of course they were a bunch of lies).

Edited May 16, 2018 by KlaytonShinoda

[hahninator]

https://youtu.be/MpaCqPRY1K4

 

And another song Mike can sing. Wow.

[HybridParty]

https://youtu.be/MpaCqPRY1K4

 

And another song Mike can sing. Wow.

 

 

Oh my...

[Stranger]

https://youtu.be/MpaCqPRY1K4

 

And another song Mike can sing. Wow.

 

THAT'S AMAZING! Wish the multitrack leaked, and someone can do Mike's version.

[KeysToTheLinkinPark]

Holy moly

[Sand0ry]

Yep he definatly can sing. It just feels he needs training and get comfortable with doing it live.

 

I found some tracks these days from MTM where Mike sings pretty well too... I almost forgot about those

 

Hands Held High

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gG4P3ayBzVY

 

And sick bonustracks

https://youtube.com/watch?v=X1axN0dXcZA

[Broman]

 

I think Chester was really awesome in the beginning of THP era. look at the Comic Con show!

 

Exactly! Comic Con, 02 World, Red Bull Sound Space, Download fest, etc. I've seen LP perform 6 or 7 times and Chester was absolutely amazing at the 2014 Tinley Park show, best I'd seen him pull off.

[KeysToTheLinkinPark]

I'm quite shocked...tbh. With instrumentals being added, it sounds really good to me. I guess TTM is another song he can perform with some backing tracks as they always used them on TTM (Especially the second chorus)

[Geki]

Exactly! Comic Con, 02 World, Red Bull Sound Space, Download fest, etc. I've seen LP perform 6 or 7 times and Chester was absolutely amazing at the 2014 Tinley Park show, best I'd seen him pull off.

 

He was pretty good on Carnivores. But a lot of other 2014 shows and 2015 shows he wasn't as good as 2017 or other years, IMO. Listen to the screams on WID from OML Live. Fucking amazing. Same with Bleed It Out's screams. He was top notch in 2017.

 

Not all of 2015 was bad. Orlando, Nashville and Indianapolis were great. Orlando was probably the best show of THP cycle, honestly. He sounded amazing and people who were there agree. You can tell just by watching videos.BlizzCon and Monster Mash were horrible. I guess he was sick but idk. I didn't particularly think he sounded that great from May to November of 2015. Comic Con 2014 was good, sure, but it was like a 6 song show. I'm judging by actual full shows. Carnivores was pretty good, I'll say that. But he definitely has sounded better in other years which is 100% normal, I'm just saying. A vocal coach is good.

[KeysToTheLinkinPark]

 

 

Not all of 2015 was bad. Orlando, Nashville and Indianapolis were great. Orlando was probably the best show of THP cycle, honestly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZYTXkT2tE Probably the best Final Masquerade they have ever played.

[Geki]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mZYTXkT2tE Probably the best Final Masquerade they have ever played.

 

I agree. Epic performance. That entire show is so good. I actually ripped audio of all that uploader's Orlando videos because it was such a good show. All the shows in 2015 from May to November (Rock In Rio USA, Rock On the Range, Beijing, BlizzCon, Monster Mash, etc) that I've heard aren't really that amazing, IMO. Especially BlizzCon and Monster Mash. But the others were not great to me, either. The Europe tour in August/September was decent but it still wasn't as epic as the first few shows of 2015.

[Broman]

 

He was pretty good on Carnivores. But a lot of other 2014 shows and 2015 shows he wasn't as good as 2017 or other years, IMO. Listen to the screams on WID from OML Live. Fucking amazing. Same with Bleed It Out's screams. He was top notch in 2017.

 

 

The WID scream was definitely sick, no complaint there, but idk, dude. I thought his screams were pretty terrible overall during the OML tour. Rather than the standard fry screams he pulled off, it sounded like he was struggling to control his vocals and it came out sounding like shrieking instead. I noticed the decline in 2015, but thought he was just having a couple bad screaming days.

I do think he did an amazing job on the new songs (except for Battle Symphony) and he always shined on New Divide last year, but everything else seemed 50/50.

[Geki]

 

The WID scream was definitely sick, no complaint there, but idk, dude. I thought his screams were pretty terrible overall during the OML tour. Rather than the standard fry screams he pulled off, it sounded like he was struggling to control his vocals and it came out sounding like shrieking instead. I noticed the decline in 2015, but thought he was just having a couple bad screaming days.

I do think he did an amazing job on the new songs (except for Battle Symphony) and he always shined on New Divide last year, but everything else seemed 50/50.

 

You were right before when you said that 2014 was vastly superior to 2015, at least IMO too. But I genuinely think 2017 was pretty good. I wouldn't say 2017 was his best of all time but I thought he sounded pretty damn good, especially when compared to 2015 and stuff. His top years of all time to me are like 2003 and 2007 but those are old times at this point.

[hahninator]

Geki I agree with you except that the first three 2015 shows for some reason, Chester was in tip top shape vocally which totally blew away the Europe 2014 performances. However, I could be biased since I was at two of the three January 2015 shows and I didn't see Europe 2014 in person but just the Berlin broadcast. He wasn't as good at Rock on the Range, though. Orlando and Nashville, holy hell I don't know what happened but he was really on it. Those two shows were so impressive to me.

 

I agree with Meteora era and 2007. 2006 and 2009 were pretty incredible too. 2012 Honda Civic Tour after Europe had some amazing shows. Hell you could argue every cycle had shows where Chester was just on it big time. Japan 2013. All sorts of stuff. I even will say Mansfield 2014 had LP in 10/10 form, big show right there. Holmdel too.

 

Watch Werchter 2017 and then the full fan video of the Sweden 2017 show right after it. The last five shows in Europe they had hit that stride and just fucking owned it every single night on stage. Of course Berlin, etc were great earlier in the tour...Krakow too and all that. But once Werchter came they really smoked about 5 shows in a row which set up the potential for the North American Tour to kick off in a huge way, especially with a stadium show as the second show. Damn damn damn.

[Geki]

Geki I agree with you except that the first three 2015 shows for some reason, Chester was in tip top shape vocally which totally blew away the Europe 2014 performances. However, I could be biased since I was at two of the three January 2015 shows and I didn't see Europe 2014 in person but just the Berlin broadcast. He wasn't as good at Rock on the Range, though. Orlando and Nashville, holy hell I don't know what happened but he was really on it. Those two shows were so impressive to me.

 

I agree with Meteora era and 2007. 2006 and 2009 were pretty incredible too. 2012 Honda Civic Tour after Europe had some amazing shows. Hell you could argue every cycle had shows where Chester was just on it big time. Japan 2013. All sorts of stuff. I even will say Mansfield 2014 had LP in 10/10 form, big show right there. Holmdel too.

 

Watch Werchter 2017 and then the full fan video of the Sweden 2017 show right after it. The last five shows in Europe they had hit that stride and just fucking owned it every single night on stage. Of course Berlin, etc were great earlier in the tour...Krakow too and all that. But once Werchter came they really smoked about 5 shows in a row which set up the potential for the North American Tour to kick off in a huge way, especially with a stadium show as the second show. Damn damn damn.

 

I agree with you on the first three shows of 2015. They were definitely epic. I wasn't there but just listening to recordings, I can tell how epic it was. As well as people like yourself that were there, saying how good it was. The band was on fire. I think Chester breaking his ankle upset him a lot and I regret being mad about the cancelled tour back then because of it. His hands were tied and it's obvious he felt bad about it. But when the tour picked back up in May with Linkin Park, I just think the shows weren't as good. Yeah, we got ALITS, but the overall performance from Chester wasn't as good as those first three shows, or 2014. BlizzCon and Monster Mash are probably some of their worst shows of their entire career. At least Monster Mash was cool with the zombie costumes and what not. It was definitely better than BlizzCon, even in terms of performance. Chester wasn't very good at BlizzCon. But people say he was sick, so yeah. I mean this is Chester Bennington we're talking here so of course he was still better than 99.9% of vocalists in my mind. Haha. But the rest of 2015, those in between shows, Europe was OK. Berlin was pretty good. But 2015 as a whole just didn't stand out to me. 2014 was actually pretty good now that I truly look back on it. Carnivores was pretty good. Europe was great, you're right. We got a shit ton of cool shows in 2014, too. All shows before Carnivores were pretty good. A lot of special shows like Warped Tour, Comic Con, Red Bull, Download (all of HT + more), Rock AM Ring, etc. I wish Rock AM Ring had better quality. The show always seemed super low in volume to me. I bet being at that show was epic, though. So yeah, I'll agree with previous posts that 2014 wasn't really bad at all. It was different than previous years because of minimal crowd interaction, but I got over that. In terms of performance from Chester, 2014 was good, 2015 was meh, besides those first three shows. At least to me.

 

Now, Meteora tour was epic, everyone knows that. But I feel like as epic as 2004, it's overrated in some ways. PR04 is amazing but I think the band sounded even better in 2003. Listen to any recording from 2003 and you get an EPIC fucking performance. Live In Texas, Nippon Budokan shows, LPU Tour, Europe 2003, etc. Everything about 2003 was epic as hell to me. Summer Sanitarium was damn amazing and I honestly think the band sounded better on that tour over PR04, if I had to say, and I know that's probably an unpopular opinion. PR04 and 2004 in general was fucking amazing, don't get me wrong, I just think 2003 was slightly better. I often find that the year the album drops, the tour is better, like 2003 for Meteora, 2012 for LT, etc, But I'll get into that as my post goes on.

 

2007 was truly fucking amazing. 2007, IMO, was the absolute best live year for the band. PR07 was amazing and every show was amazing. I loved every band on the tour and Linkin Park performed at 100% each night, IMO. I absolutely loved that tour. I can't say anything more about it other than the fact that I absolutely adore it. Pre PR07 was epic, too. A lot of great promo shows, and Europe. Bamboozle, my first ever show, was amazing. Berlin before it was amazing, Astoria too. Rock AM Ring was amazing. Lisbon was amazing. All of those shows pre PR07 were epic. Even after PR07, Australia and New Zealand were badass. Chester broke his wrist, continued playing the whole show, and whole tour, without cancelling anything. And the shows sounded great, too. They met Chris Cornell at that tour, too. Asia after it in November was also amazing. I bet a lot of people forgot that tour but listen to the DSP's, they are amazing. Bangkok, Shanghai, Taipei, Osaka, Seoul, all of those were EPIC. They sounded so good. And then they closed off they year with an epic show of Almost Acoustic Christmas, my favorite out of all the AAC shows by far. 2007 was solid through and through for me. Zero complaints. 2008 was also really good but not as good as 2007 to me. The winter tours were great, even with Chester getting sick halfway through the USA tour. Shows were still good. I just didn't find them as good as 2007 shows. Europe 2008 was amazing from what we can tell, I just wish there were DSP's or better recordings. But yeah that tour was fucking epic and probably was on par with 2007. PR08, you could tell that the band was getting tired out, but it was still epic. Tons of cool bands and the shows were great. I just thought PR07 brought it more. MTM as a whole, for a cycle, was good. But I thought 2007 was the best year. 2009 was also amazing, I liked it more than 2008, actually. Not a bad show in 2009. Lots of good shit. Band sounded great. Not too many shows but it was to be expected. So yeah, 2007 was the best, and 2009 was about the same. 2008 was amazing but not as good as the other 2 years, IMO.

 

Now we move on to ATS. 2010 actually was quite good. I didn't realize it until recently. I saw the band in NYC in 2010 and I loved that show. Never was a good recording that surfaced or a DSP, but I have fond memories of it. I never got around to listening to all of the 2010 shows until recently, though, and they are quite damn good. Tel Aviv is amazing, probably my favorite of the year. Canberra and Melbourne 2010 are both also amazing. Abu Dhabi, Berlin, Paris with the epic APFMH, London, wow. Linz is also good. I like 2010 a lot. Even though the only real U,S, show was NYC (not counting the 5 song Kevin & Bean show in LA), I loved the year. 2011 was also really good. ATS is probably the only cycle that all years were great. I honestly liked 2010 more but 2011 was still epic. Lots of good shows and cool places like Moscow, etc. Not much else to say about that cycle. It was kind of short but was still great. Was definitely a weird touring route, but was awesome nonetheless.

 

Now there is LT. 2012 was amazing, like Hahninator said. I loved Honda Civic Tour, it was my favorite tour in the U.S. since PR07. The band was on fire each night and Mansfield 2012 might be one of my favorite shows of all time. I thought the band sounded good all throughout 2012, honestly. Europe, South America and South Africa were all legendary and awesome. I loved the 2012 sets a lot. It was cool that they closed out the year with debuting COG, too. AAC from 2012 was a good show, although a shitty webcast. 2013 wasn't bad at all. Soundwave and Asia were both great tours. I saw them in 2013 at SSMF and it was good. But I thought 2012 was much better. They still had good energy in 2013, but 2012 just seemed epic to me. 2013 also had minimal touring, so that might be partially why, it was the shortest touring year for the band ever, next to 2016, which they didn't tour at all.

 

I already covered THP cycle, so all that's left is OML cycle. OML cycle I thought was weird, but good. A lot of promo performances to kick it off. I don't count those. South America, with the first real shows, those were good. I loved all of those shows. Europe was good. I thought the band sounded great. Not as good as 2012, 2007 or previous, but better than other years. They seemed happy. And then tragedy stuck. So it was cut short. That's all I can really say....

 

Final verdict, 2007 was the best Chester ever sounded, to me. 2003 was close behind, and 2012 was third. After that, who knows. But yeah.

 

EDIT: I forgot HT cycle. There is no question that 2001 was a huge year. The most touring that the band ever did. Lots of huge tours and shows. 2001 is when the band blew up into the mainstream. I wasn't a fan during the era (got into the band in 2003) but it seemed epic. 2002 was also really good, judging by recordings. 2000 gets overlooked a lot, but I find myself listening to 2000s shows a lot. Orlando, The Roxy and many more. The band sounded young, angry and non-commercial, which I enjoy. It was raw. So I honestly think 2000 was the best year for HT cycle. I know it's wrong, but personally, I just enjoyed 2000. HT came out in 2000 in the U.S. btw. A lot of people forget that, they think it came out in 2001, it did in Europe in 2001, but not the U.S. I feel like you can't compare HT touring cycle with the rest, though, because it was the first and the band was just getting going. Honestly. too, if you are a fan of Chester's screaming like I am, check out some 2000's shows, because he sounded awesome. Raw and often times out of pitch, but it was so raw and underground sounding, that I love it. 2000 is special to me for some reason.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Geki