I arrived not knowing what to expect. Scott (CatDirt Sez) and I arrived while My Chemical Romance was playing and from a distance, they sounded pretty good. At first I thought that there weren't too many people at Coors for a concert of this magnitude. I mean, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Placebo, Saosin and several others played throughout the day on two stages. But once we got to our seats, I was able to clearly see that the first two sections were 95% full, the third section was comfortably full and we had enough people on the lawn taking in My Chemical Romance.
I want to say that I will come out of the closet. I've been a closet My Chemical Romance fan. I don't own their cds, but I watched their DVD a while back ago and I was impressed by their theatrics on stage and how they keep their audience engaged. Seeing them live solidified it for me. Gerard and gang were all over the stage. He talked to the audience, getting them pumped up. He was all about the pumping of the fists. They had some fireworks and some pyrotechnics that you could actually feel a slight burst of heat from (thanks again for the awesome seats Scott!). I thought his live singing voice was close enough to the recorded voice that it didn't make me cringe. I was even more impressed by how many girls were there to see them. They knew all the lyrics and they knew the songs as soon as the first few chords were played. I was given the privilege of watching this little girl freak out when her favorite song (assumption) was played. She FREAKED out. I loved it. It was total fandom at its greatest. The interesting part is that this same little girl, who must've been no older than 10, didn't show the same enthusiasm for Linkin Park. They played for a good hour and they kept the energy going throughout the whole set.
After their set, we took a walk to see what we could see. The merchandise table was full of items to buy and while there were some buying, I would have expected much more, perhaps they all had their fill or they were saving it for afterwards. We went back to our seats to catch the set up. I had seen Linkin Park back in the day when they played with Cypress Hill and boy has their stage changed. It's bigger and better - to go along with their rise in fame. The stage was set up as a two level stage with the DJ and the drummer on the riser and the other 4 on the main level. They had 4 other small stage risers set up on the very front of the stage, which the musicians utilized throughout the concert.
Linkin Park played for about an hour and a half. They played all of their hits from the past 10 years. According to Mike Shinoda, they've been around that long and wanted to give big ups to the bands that are starting as they became nostalgic at the fact that they were there at one point. I think they did a great job with their set list. They took it up and down and the fans did not seem to be disappointed. They seemed very grateful towards the fans. Throughout the whole night, they would take their time to thank the fans that have been there through everything. They even mentioned that they were nervous to put out this album since the style of the music on this album had changed from previous albums. Their newer album, Minutes to Midnight, is slower, more melodic, compared to the others.
Chester and Mike were jumping around the stage and completely hyped up. The audience was just as hyped. The mosh pit was full of people, especially towards the end when they were cranking out their harder songs. I went and sat with my sister and my cousin towards the end of the set and was amazed at the even more hardcore fans up in the higher sections. They were singing along, pumping their fists and going through convulsions! I think the quote of the night is when they thanked Chula Vista for being such a great city to play and a girl/woman, next to us said, "but I thought we were in San Diego?"
CatDirt Sez has a great review of the concert as well. Go check it out!
Pictures to come.
