For me – and it checks all three boxes of band/song and concert – it’s Linkin Park. From their early early days of Hybrid Theory right through to the absolute pinnacle of seeing them in concert in 2012 at Sonic Boom (did you know that that was the only time they’ve played in Edmonton, ever? Thank you Sonic 102.9!), I’ve always been and will continue to be a Linkin Park fan. Times have changed, their music is an evolution of that (in my opinion all good artists evolve), and of course, Chester taking his own life in 2017, changed the band’s trajectory forever.
Last night, Linkin Park released their 20th Anniversary of Meteora ‘box set’ digitally, and on it is a never before released track – “Lost”. Watch the official video here:
I cried. Twice.
Chester’s voice, his passion and the lyrics and meaning to many of their songs are powerful, uplifting, supportive and authentic are something I’ve missed dearly. Frankly, I’ve had a hard time listening to any of Linkin Park’s stuff with Chester on the mic, because of how hard his death hit me. Partly I think because I tie songs to particular life moments, creating memories, and want to protect those memories as best as I can. But when a new song comes along, well, then all bets are off. I can listen.
And make maybe one new good memory with Chester on lead vocals.
Anyway, I know this isn’t dental or marketing or technology related, but I figured: it’s my site, has a blog, and why can’t I blog about other stuff?
<shakes off the emotions>
I’m so glad they went full production quality for the video! What a visual masterpiece – you can see glimpses of actual band and studio footage overlayed with beautiful, shifting layers of shapes and colours, undulating from smooth to jagged, adding to the emotional between-the-lines story. Seamlessly transitioning between scenes, it all just works so well. In the “olden days” something like this would represent thousands of hours of hand rotoscoped frames, I imagine there are newer methods that shorten that up, and possibly automate much/all of it, but the end result is breathtaking, regardless.
Update – Mike Shinoda and part of the creation team have given more details on how the video was made:
Thanks for listening, and enjoy.
One of the 100 nights of music at the Tree House Cafe in Ganges on Sat Spring Island. It was a community open mic night and one after another locals took to the tiny stage and did their thing. The cafe itself is situated in a little town square, both table-service patrons and take-out patrons could gather and enjoy the show. It changed how I felt about concerts. This was intimate, simple, and joy-filled in a way that would have been impossible at a larger scale. The applause wasn’t frantic or ecstatic, it was celebratory and appreciative. It was “thank you” not “I Am Here!!”. It wasn’t a concert you had to attend, it was a moment you could choose to slip into and enjoy for a while. No urgency. No sense of a culmination of fandom. No “this is IT!” There was just one bar of music after another, one sip of coffee after another, one shadow cast by passersby wandering through the square after another, and out of it all a deep sense of human scale. These performers weren’t elevated to godlike positions, but counterintuitively because they were just there, their real selves, they were as big and as brave and as genuine and as talented as they truly were. I loved it and it keeps me coming back.
Typo: SALT Spring Island.