Linkin Park LIVE!

Well, what can I say. This wasn't supposed to be on my schedule or even cross my path but it did. Anberlin was supposed to be my first major rock band concert but out of the blues, Linkin Park came and dislodged the queue to be the first! Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't pay for such a steep price to attend the concert but I'm very thankful indeed to get a complimentary ticket. I'm pretty excited for it after arrangements were made on Wednesday and so on yesterday, right after all the resting, I met up with Tim at the bus-stop opposite my place to get a bus to the railway station. It'll be my first time taking a train from the station and to travel in between cities using the rail. The Manchester Evening News Arena, more well-known as the M.E.N. arena is located just beside the Manchester Victoria station and it's covenient to walk over from the station. This place is the venue for plenty of major acts as compared to Leeds and it's just 1.5 hrs away, giving me another reason on why I chose to study in Leeds - rock concerts are just a train stop away.

We met up with Tim's cousin to get the tickets and although we were there on time at 7.30pm, the place was not fully filled up. Looks like lots of people have the habit of being late for concerts. We had an opening act by some band called does it offend you yeah and they're more of an electro-techno kind of band. I find them irritating though. Linkin Park did not appear until about 8.15pm or so. The first recognisable song that was played was "New Divide" and this was followed by "Faint". Other favourites were "Numb", "Breaking the Habit", "One Step Closer", "In the End", "Shadow of the Day" and "What I've Done". Chester Bennington has the fantastic stretch of screamo as usual and Mike Shinoda looks a little withdrawn though with his hoodie and playing behind the keyboards. Since I have a limited space of 2GB of SD, I could only record a few songs and extracts of others. Ughhh..I think I should invest in a 8GB SD for concert purposes. The concert ended at about 10pm and yea, I'm definitely delighted to have gone for such a major concert. This trip is also useful in the sense that I could scout and survey the area for Paramore on 19th November who are coming to the same venue to perform. I would come for sure for Hayley and co but the question is finding people to accompany me there.

It's so convenient to hop back onto a train back to Leeds although we had to squeeze through and stand half-way the journey. British rail speed feels alot like KTM but they are punctual in their arrivals. Haha, at the train, I could hear that everyone was just chatting about Chester. By the time we arrived back at Leeds, it's around 12am and it's pretty decent in the sense that in the future, I do not neccessarily need to stay overnight in Manchester for any event. That was once-in-a-liftetime opportunity to witness Linkin Park live in action and I'll be looking forward for Paramore!