Charles Jensen | Writer

It’s concert week here at kinemapoetics! Last night I tagged along with a friend to the Linkin Park show at Nissan Pavilion. The show was in Virginia; since I live in Maryland, I dressed for our weather, which, when I left, was cool and rainy.

In Virginia, things were a hot swampy mess. It was sunny, so humid it was turning hazy, and there I was, sitting out by my friend’s boss’s pool in my jeans and brown t-shirt. Fortunately, having to wear pants to work during the Arizona summers helped me balance it out, but I admit it was still a little uncomfortable. And I honestly thought the humid night air would make me feel cold, and I dressed with an eye to that.

Beyond my fashion foibles, the show was good. We caught most of The Bravery set (but I had to eat first or I would have passed out). Their live show is fairly straight forward, simply playing their songs. They have a good energy, but I wasn’t wowed. I do love their music, though; The Sun and the Moon is a fantastic album (both versions, and also impressive because they recorded two versions).

With the sun finally going down (very slowly), my friend and I tried to stay cool and cut down on our sweating by slowly walking back and forth behind the pavilion. When a breeze whipped up (or “the breath of God” as my friend called it), it did feel good, but mostly it was a futile endeavor, trying to stop sweating. We just got swampier and swampier.

In good news, this meant there were many shirtless tattooed men to ogle.

Linkin Park closed the night. I like their music, although I haven’t been a super huge fan in the past. I was sort of surprised to see their audience could have passed for a Promise Keepers convention, there were so many white men in their late twenties and early thirties there. And when the music started, they all, in union, began to spaz. There’s no better way to say this. They didn’t “dance,” although their girlfriends did; they shook their fists, or waved the palm of their hand over their head to the beat, or jumped around, or hit each other. It was like watching them be washed down by a hose spraying musical testosterone.

Linkin Park works their butt off during their show. The lead vocalist, I’m sure, is going to be voiceless in about five years. He really puts everything into his performance; you can see his neck straining to shriek those notes. Amazingly, he has near perfect pitch even then. I like the group overall, the way they blend all the different music styles into something a little different.

Next: we see how the other half lives (and attends concerts) when I join 15,000 gays and Reb Livingston at George Michael!