mikeatron85

so im back... and still blown away. i knew blackout was going to be played at least a few hours before the show - which is the surprise i was talking about on twitter. mike confirmed it during the M&G saying they weren't sure if they were ready to do it but we convinced them to try i must tell you all about something that happened tonight which, i would have to say, is the single coolest thing that has EVER happened to me. my friend and i were sitting in the catering area prior to the show - mike/phoenix/joe just metres away - when a small kid approaches me from behind, taps me on the shoulder and says 'daddy, why are you in your pyjamas already?' i looked at him with a face of disbelief, looked at my mate, then looked at the kids mother only to realise that there was talinda bennington with two of chester's kids. i just about died. a) because apparently my board shorts and nike t-shirt looked like pyjamas to a little kid (lol) and because i was being mistaken as chester by his own child. the poor kid buried his face into his mum while we had a chat. we talked about his hair (styled very similarly to his dad) and she commented on the sneakers i was wearing. seriously... still can't get over it hey... what an experience!

hey guys, yup will be tweeting again. also going to the M&G. anyone else going look for a dude in a white Nike t-shirt with 2 sneakers f***ing on it ;D

ha. you were clearly at a different show to everyone else in melbourne. the feedback i could hear from anyone i walked by after the show was astounding to say the least. not to mention the number of NEW linkin park t-shirts i saw walking around melbourne CBD today would suggest you are in a minority with that opinion. chester's voice, as has always been, was absolutely incredible last night.

oh wait... was this the first show to be announced? if it was then yep, it has sold out - but i thought last night looked pretty much sold out so who knows!

this is very true! kept saying to my mate 'dude, how many singles do these guys wanna release from one album... they may as well release all songs on it as singles at this rate!' plus have they toured america recently? im not sure, but i know they only toured australia a fair while after the release of dark horse.

im going! heard tonight's show hasn't sold very well - so if i end up at the front again, hopefully there won't be as many douchebags in the crowd as there was in second row last night. will let you all know the setlist via twitter once again

that was reading my eyes?! damn... it's obviously been far too long since i've heard it - didn't even recognise it hey... for shame!

oh it was weeeeeird hey! this big tall beefy looking guy (who had almost like some utility belt on or something - mate reckons he saw a knife in there somewhere) had this bag of stuff to give the guys - and one by one, as he went across the table, started handing each of them some DVD. i couldn't tell what was on it but it looked like preachy religious stuff - wasn't until we got to phoenix/chester that i found out what it was... phoenix said something about nothing like a bit of scientology thrown at you or something like that... they all looked a bit freaked out by it - which is a shame because when i reached mike - i asked on pez's behalf if he could play faint again and i think it completely went over mike's head lol. poor guys

i think you're absolutely right. i knew that tonight would be setlist A - it made sense - play the same setlist in a row for sydney night 1 and melbourne night 1 then possibly play a different setlist for the second night at each location - whether it's one theyve already played or a new one entirely who knows. good show tonight - before LP started i took a look around and the crowd around us looked great - nice, decent, normal people. well that changed the second LP came on - latecomers pushed their way through to second row (right behind us) and were an absolute nuisance the entire night. i felt really sorry for the people theyd pushed out of the way had to keep saying to my mate (loudly) - you think they'd get the idea that 50/60 minutes in, they were not going to get us out of the way but no, they kept trying. as for the band - great stuff. a few songs stood out tonight as being exceptional and definitely the best versions i've heard from the 8 shows i've attended so far - shadow of the day and iridescent. in previous shows, the big punchy parts of the songs just didn't carry across as well as they could have - total opposite tonight. they absolutely kicked ass. support band tonight was dead letter circus indeed - great opening band, really enjoyed them and actually thinking about going to buy their CD tomorrow as for who has opened which shows - i'm not 100% sure as a lot of them i was either doing the backstage tour or doing the meet & greet... but this is what i do know/think: brisbane: pretty sure it was dead letter circus - the band is from here and it sounded like them from outside newcastle: no support band. LP were due to start 7:45pm so they could get out of there quickly in order for the full production to make it to WA in time for the perth show (band ended up starting at 8:15). perth: actually have no idea who opened at this one - given it's my home city i should know! the rest of my friends i went with who weren't at the M&G should know so i can find out if required. adelaide: 'the art' were the support band - absolutely woeful. think the lead singer yelled some abuse at my mate and i because he thought it was us hurling abuse at the band - it was actually a guy a few people behind us :S sydney night 1: should definitely have been dead letter circus - they were selling shirts at the merch counter for them. didn't see them as i was at the M&G. melbourne night 1: dead letter circus - great way to start the night! hope this helps!

great energy from the band AND the fans tonight... definitely the highlight of the aussie tour for me so far - came very close to eclipsing the london shows for me (and may have actually done that - will need to decide after i've let it all sink in!). got to go to the meet & greet before the show - cory (or is it corey)... you are a freaking legend girl! speaking of which! LP_Lewy - i did as you asked dude! she seemed almost surprised that she was being passed a message like that and she said thanks and that it was no problem no problems re: tweeting the setlist guys. don't mind doing it - especially when im seated. the next two nights in melbourne may be tough as the mate has asked me to do standing both nights - could be a bit rough! but i'll do my best... it couldnt possibly be any more out of control than the adelaide pit! now, some exciting stuff! got to meet some LPLivers tonight - Pez and DJIntensity - pleasure to meet you two! sorry that mike and the band didn't end up pulling you up again despite my request pez... as i said - i think scientology guy freaked them out a bit and he was directly ahead of me. mike was definitely a little taken aback so it was just poor timing i think was good to see phoenix and chester having a laugh about it after though nup 'the art' have opened at a majority of the shows so far. absolutely awful :S (hope im not offending anyone here when i say that!) i'd seen them open for 30 seconds to mars a few months ago and they copped the same reaction from the crowd as they are with linkin park - people shouting things out like 'get off the stage', 'let the chick keep singing', 'give your sister her jeans back', 'go home, no one wants to hear your sh*t', etc, etc, etc. in fact! the lead singer pointed towards my mate and i - and made eye contact when he said 'there's always ONE f****t in the crowd' - i think he though we were yelling all that stuff out when it was actually some guy a little behind us. ironic though - hearing someone who looks, sounds and behaves like this guy yell an insult like that out.

woohoo! was going to use one of my codes and get it this arvo but we had to leave to get a cab to acer arena for sydney night 1 might get it now so ive got something to listen to on the plane in 6 hours time!

cheers for the shout-out dude, happy to help. will be updating tonight as well guys - much easier from the stands rather than front of the pit! hoping for something new - i've got a feeling we'll get setlist A... but you never know - maybe a repeat of... is it setlist D we're up to now? either way - should be a good show - am i right in saying this one is sold out?

oh was absolutely no trouble hey... got a few slaps from my mate saying 'put ya phone down!' and the crowd was a little tough to deal with last night but i managed ok - just hope i can continue to do it for the remaining shows (which im sure i'll be able to).

i'd say so i haven't actually opened any of the 4 i bought yet - just used the codes on the back and chucked em onto the ol iphone. i'm assuming they give you the CD-Rs so you can just burn the mp3/pic files and use the CD more for backup purposes? (then of course you have the players that play mp3 cds anyways). think highest capacity cd-rs are 80 yeh?

hellz yeah! i've got 2 download codes to use on them - need to buy a stack more of the CD-Rs they sell at the show - probably tomorrow night as we'll be seated and will have time to wait in the merch. line haha ps, i love all the under-handed talk on here which reminds me! does one's warning level ever get erased or reset to zero? i've got a warning from jen (i think?) from when i first joined the site and was a bit of a n00b if you know what i mean

haha i love how im going to these shows and only realising AFTER the fact that there were a whole stack of LPLivers there good job LP_Lewy! was front centre and got to see ya do an awesome job crowd was psycho tho - a lot of dropkick deadbeats in the crowd - couldn't believe the stuff they were actually saying on the plus - my twitter account seems to be enjoying a whole heap of activity! will be tweeting the sydney setlist tomorrow night for y'all! PS. to whomever upgraded me to contributor - thank you very much - appreciate it a lot! good to be affiliated with you guys!

welcome dude... was wondering when more perth peeps would start posting here will chat to ya on FB soon im sure! (oh ps, the standard definition video of you playing faint is uploading to my page right now - the HD kept cutting out so had to downsize for now )

perhaps maybe gearing up for the second sydney show? not too sure what to expect - except i believe we'll get setlist A on tonight's show too. i should be able to tweet the setlist again - just depends on where our VIP tickets take us tonight - we're hoping to get onto the barrier at the front so that might be somewhat difficult to tweet in... but will do my best! otherwise i'm sure we'll end up seated. talk to you all soon!

dayum... thought i'd RSVPd in here! i'm going! didn't get a M&G though

yep! basically, charitybuzz.com ran a charity auction on behalf of music for relief for VIP tickets - the winning bidder gets a backstage tour prior to the show (including opportunities to take photos with the band's instruments, photos on-stage, some cool stuff like guitar picks/drum sticks/shirt/bandanna/photo) - quite thorough and you get to see a lot of stuff you wouldn't ever even dream of seeing! then you have the option of good seats to the side of the stage/watch the show from the mixing desk or be let into general admin 2 minutes before everyone else. despite the fact i had already done it in london, doing it again last night in perth was a whole other experience... i felt bad for hugo who was showing me around - he probably thought i would get bored as i'd seen it all before but i loved and appreciated every minute of it! we watched the show from the mixing desk last night too which was cool but a few other guests who were there kept talking throughout the entire show - a bit disappointing... you'd think they'd be loving every minute of it like we were! so i think next time (if we can) we'll take the opportunity to go standing 2 minutes early... would be awesome to be up the front at an LP gig - something i havent done yet!

yeh im looking forward to the adelaide show - going to try and get to the very front of standing... so should be incredible

every experience so far has just been mind-blowing hey... don't know how i'm going to come back down to reality after all of it is over

sorry i couldn't be upfront about the setlist last night peeps. i obviously saw it during our backstage tour and knew a lot of you would be disappointed, but promised hugo that we wouldn't tell anyone. to be honest - i've seen this set 4 times now and it never bores me. in fact, there were 10 of us who went together last night and 8 of those 10 haven't seen a single show on this tour so far - they loved and reveled in every minute of the show... some saying it was the best concert they'd ever been to. i love that this setlist can evoke an emotional response like that. i realise it must be boring to follow from the online point of view, but they are bringing what is a very strong setlist to each new location. i think it's obvious that they will change up the setlist for cities in which 2 or more shows are taking place... but i think it is completely logical and expected for them to maintain this setlist at each new city (at least once anyway). anyways, rant over i just want to say a massive thank you to hugo and cory (i think that was her name!) for everything they did for my mate and i last night. not sure if they read this or if anyone affiliated with the band on the aussie leg of the world tour do, but you guys are unbelievably awesome!

AWESOME! im in a whole heap of those perth pics... as you may have read - i didn't get a M&G email for any of the 10 shows i'm attending. luckily enough - a mate of mine did last night and asked if i could use one of the no-show's passes to which they very kindly and graciously allowed. was cool to meet a few of the perth fans there last night - i don't think any of them are on here though?

looking at roughly 4 hours until doors open and 6 until the band starts. will be tweeting the setlist from the mixing desk!