Smarky

This is devastating on so many levels. These words from Mike, so emotional And then I just think about my own life and how i struggle right now and it hurts. "There's an emptiness tonight... A hole that wasn't there before... And I keep reaching for the light... But I can't find it anymore..." "They say it's gonna be alright... But can't begin to tell me how... And I ask myself out loud... Have I been lost all along?" Like everybody always says everything will be okay when you try and talk to them, but nobody can tell you how, it just feels empty. These are such perfect lyrics. This is why I think they don't need to bring in outside writers, look at how amazing this is.

Ugh. Why doesn't he just stay away? Why does Steve Akoi keep coming to ruin everything? He is like the loser at a party who turns up, changes the music to some kinda crappy dance music, throws up in your grandmothers urn then leaves.

I don't understand what the point of this is? We already have the music video, this song or the video has no relevance to Chesters death at all, so why do we have it? I guess they are just trying to promote the song some more? Since they are unable to do any active promo themselves? But still seems pointless?

If anyone is interested... I am trying to organise and memorial for Saturday in Birmingham, were fans will meet and we will visit the venue of Chesters show and lay flowers etc and have a memorial, we will also chat and share stories about the band and what they meant to us. Not for sure yet, just gauging interest across all channels, let me know. Event going ahead. Message me here or let me know if you wish to attend, or follow me on twitter @smarky or we now have a Facebook group, but most contact is happening over twitter. https://www.facebook.com/events/958707614271423/

I love you all, my LP family.

Yea I would imagine Mr Chow is the presenter so thankfully this might be great cause you won't have James Corden.

To be honest... I know you guys are all hyped by the idea of them doing carpool karaoke, but I couldn't care less, I hate this show... But then again I am not a fan of TV, James Corden and the acts they normally have on it. But I am really curious as to what Ken Jeong is doing there and adding to this, I love Mr Chow and his character in the awesome hangover series.

"We share some of our love and our prayers for the families and the victims of the tragedy of Manchester arena, my heart has never been broken so much on the day I found out that tragedy happened and since that day I have been wearing these little ear rings with the bees in them, I know that's a symbol of strength and hope for the city of Manchester and I am going to keep these in until all this nonsense stops and we can start loving each other, until we can stop hurting each other because we believe in something different to the person standing next to us, the one thing that cannot be defeated is love, right? You can conquer hate by ignoring it, you can destroy it by loving the person next to you, so I want everyone here tonight to look at the person standing next to you and just tell them that you love them and you are happy that they are here with you tonight, having a good time, listening to music, celebrating life, we don't care what you look like, we don't care where you come from, we don't care what you believe in, we love every single one of you out there and nothing will ever change that, with that said, let's sing some songs together... " - Chester Bennington.

They seemed to have a lot of cameras on stage at Brixton filming the band during this song.

So a few more details now I am back at my hotel... I told Mike I had a request from myself and LP live members and he looked worried lol so I told him "don't worry it isint no roads left" and he laughed and I asked if they could dedicate one more light to the manchester victims as it would of been that show tomorrow and he said t would like to and he would think about it but they had to be careful and sensitive to certain issues, he said after it happened Chester had written a statement and asking people to come out to the other shows but they didn't put it out cause they didn't want to be seen harming the other venues (management thing), he said they tired really hard to find another venue but with so many other bands doing the same nothing was available and he then said he would think about it, he spoke about it for some time and seemed very upset about it. So then when Chester came I asked the same and he said he would do it, he showed me his ear plugs which have bees on it and did he put them in right after it happened and wasn't going to take them out until something like we learn to be free and to live together, he repeated this story on stage and described it as a horrible incident and said he would do it cause he had thought about doing something already but wasn't sure what to do Oh and the official LPU camera guy, I think his name is travis? Came up and fist bumped me afterwards

I've got meet and greet, I'll ask if they can dedicate the song! They did it!!! Yea!!! I asked Mike and had a long conversation with him about it but he wasn't sure if they could, said they were a lot of issues around it, so I asked Chester and he said he would and told me he had these plugs in his ears with bees on since the incident and he wasn't going to take them out until we learned to all live together!! He then told the story again on stage and made a beautiful tribute before they played one more light!!!

NCSM didn't get much reaction so I was surprised when Heavy got such a good and loud reaction! As a show opener I think it depends on the type of crowd, it seemed to work very well here because the crowd were already hyped up and there was confusion around start time/they came on late, therefore I think it got a better reaction than if it was in the middle of the set and leaves a big classic song for later rather than having to waste it at the start to hype everyone up.

Some photos from last night! Couple more on my instagram: http://instagram.com/chaosliveswithineverything/ And so it begins... haha I got one of those balloons!

To the guys that I spoke to who were looking at this thread before the show started, if you check it out again, hello, hope you enjoyed the show!

In the queue right now lol

Scala? This was sold out. There were notices in the window as soon as we got there stating that the performance was SOLD OUT.

The band are kinda lucky that it's a soft Hellfest lineup with pop bands like Aerosmith playing anyway, so it's not quite like a traditional Hellfest, I am hoping to go to this festival next year for the first time. I just don't like France. It's an amazingly well run festival with excellent production compared to most euro festivals.

I've already got my tickets But I also have tickets for Brixton and Birmingham (which is now the last show of the tour!) so that will have to do! Why don't you just go to one of the other shows? Trains aren't that expensive?

I am super excited about this, bummed to be missing the first night at the 02 arena cause I love the venue, but I have blink-182 on that day. However, it will be exciting to see LP in this small venue and catching them in Birmingham and Manchester for the bigger shows! The sales for the 02 arena were odd, the standing sold out super quick, it's just the poor seats that nobody wants left, I'm sure they could of sold well for a second 02 arena date, standing seemed to sell out quicker than previously tbh and the last time they played the 02 arena two nights, the second night wasn't sold out! But earlier this year I was thinking about how i wanted to see a band at Brixton, what better band for it to be than LP!

Whoa... I was waiting for the second London show and this is crazy..... I'm guessing because they didn't feel they could sell out the o2 on a second date, they decided for a smaller venue, very interesting, very excited about this, will try grab some tickets on presale when they go up!

How much would the CD with the tickets increased these numbers? Would this have made the sales artificially high?

Awesome. I love OML for the record, but this isin't a massive massive success, because it barely sold more than THP which is considered a commercial failure and considering this is an apparently more accessible record, it just goes to show, LP can do niche just fine. Although what we should consider is that after all this time, LP can still release an album and it tops the charts. Pretty great staying power, even if they no longer hit mega numbers. And what is also impressive is they can do it with an album both like THP and OML.

The thing is standing sold out super quick, it's just seating that hasn't sold and it's all the poor seats that nobody wants anyway.

My thoughts keep changing.... but Heavy is my favourite and Sorry for now is the worst. 1. Heavy 2. Talking to Myself 3. One More light 4. Sharp edges 5. Battle Symphony 6. Invisible 7. Good Goodbye 8. Nobody can save me 9. Halfway right. 10. Sorry for now

I don't understand people complaining/expecting/wanting more songs..... this is part of the creative and album recording process. You record a lot of stuff so you can throw a lot of it away and have the best stuff on the album. If you only recorded ten songs and all ten were on the album, likely there is a lot of sucky stuff there. The reason why the album isn't longer, doesn't have more songs, is those songs are not up to standard, they are not good enough for the album. Now you can argue about the quality of the songs that actually made it, but for whatever reason the songs that didn't haven't been deemed suitable, I would rather not have them, i'd hope they not see the light of day. I personally don't really like the LPU demo's either, they are good to listen to once or twice, like watching a making off documentary (off topic: I'd love to see a full documentary this album, to see how it all actually went down), but I don't enjoy it as music, why? Because these aren't fully finished songs, they are just half ideas, you wouldn't want a chef to half cook your food. I wish bands would do this even more, record several albums worth of ideas and songs and then throw even more away, so we have far less filler, a lot of bands out there are able to record 3/4 good songs per album and the rest is complete trash/filler, I think it would be better if they just recorded way more songs and threw way more stuff away and then we have better albums. Also in terms of LP, I wish they would get a producer back, I understand the want to self produce, but having a great producer is what keeps you in check, it's what pushes you forward, or else you are just stuck in your own little bubble without even realising, thinking you are doing something creative/great etc when you are not. I almost think this has happened somewhat on this album, Mike emailing about wanting this to be the best LP album, but they had no outside force pushing them and challenging them to do so, so what you end up with is something actually quite generic. Sure they had a lot of collaborations in on the writing, but they are more just yes men, working with the band, there was nobody pushing them from the outside creatively and I normally think this hurts most bands. Just my thoughts.... I see myself getting more and more distant from the LP community lately too, which is sad, I feel like the LP community was the best out there, at least for me, but these days I see that we are all more and more distant, opinions are more divided and crazy... perhaps that's the journey of the LP fan! This album cycle is kinda weird for me. I'm not that excited about getting OML, it's in what two weeks? I ordered the deluxe package, I'm expecting to quite like the album, but in the same way, I'm expecting that I will only listen to it for a short while, maybe a few days after release ad then mostly move onto something else. I feel like I am doing some kinda journaling exercise here, writing out my inner most thoughts relating to this album and the band right now... haha sorry!