The flawless Linkin Park

Tribunnews/Danny PermanaAmerican rock band Linkin Park hit Jakarta back in 2004, bringing a mass of hysteria with their world-class performance. Seven years later, the band comes back, stronger than ever.

While rock rap and nu metal bands are gasping to survive, trying to escape from demise in the highly competitive music industry, Linkin Park — popularly known as LP — remains alive.

They present more than just the two blends, providing a more colorful combination with some touches of pop and classic rock.

The Grammy Award-winning band, which came onto the scene with its unique sound, has maintained its strength and creativity with four studio albums – Hybrid Theory (2000), Meteora (2003), Minutes to Midnight (2007) and A Thousand Suns (2010) – a mash-up album titled Collision Course with rapper Jay-Z and a number of tracks, including the soundtracks of blockbuster movie franchise Transformers.

It’s been 11 years of stardom and LP, which has been nominated for MTV Europe Music Awards for Best Rock and Best World Stage, demonstrates that it still has got teeth in the music business.

The band’s musical quality was demonstrated during its second visit to Indonesia, which is part of the band’s world tour, “A Thousands Suns”, held at the Bung Karno Sports Stadium on Wednesday night.

At 8:30 p.m., in front of thousands of fans, Brad Delson (guitar), Chester Bennington (lead vocals), Joe Hahn (turntables), Mike Shinoda (vocals), Phoenix (bass) and Rob Bourdon (drums) took the stage with “Papercut”, from the album Hybrid Theory.

The song was followed with a number of tracks such as “New Divide”, “Faint” and “Given Up”.

The mix of nu metal, hip hop stride and experimental instruments forced the audience in the tribune area to get out off their seats, jumping up and down frantically and waving their hands in the air.

The band members, who had just arrived from Taiwan in the afternoon, showed not a single sign of fatigue.

Bennington was all-out and did not even bother holding the mic out or point to the fans, showing off his vocal fitness and unlimited energy.

“Jakarta! Thank you. Thank you for joining us,” hailed Bennington to the screaming fans who cheered them from right nearby the stage and in the tribune areas.

The vocalist truly has a great vocal range, possessing solid power and tone. His screams and growls have become one of the most distinctive voices in the world of modern rock. In the show, he and Delson also displayed their skills in percussion.

Shinoda the rapper also showed his quality, rapping in tracks, such as “When They Come for Me” and “Wretches and Kings”, singing verses in “Blackout”, “Iridescent” (the OST of the latest installment of Transformers, Dark of the Moon) and “The Catalyst”, while altering his voice using a pitch-correction device on “The Requiem”.

The night went wild when the band played non-stop their chart-topping singles like “Numb” (with Oppenheimer outro), “Breaking the Habit”, “Shadow of the Day”, “Crawling” and “One Step Closer”.

Technology — the lighting, visual graphics and effects — helped make the gig spectacular.

One hour passed quickly before the band hit the encore with “Fallout”. With the encore of familiar songs “In the End” and “What I’ve Done”, Bennington finally gave the mic to the audiences to take over the lyrics.

The gritty harmonies of “Bleed It Out”, with a medley taken from track “A Place for My Head” and Bourbon drum solo over bridge, finished up the concert in style. LP might not have been so talkative throughout the concert, but the overall performance did the talking. It was really beyond words.