Last Night: Linkin Park At Toyota Center

LP mar4 a.JPG
Photos by Groovehouse
Linkin Park, Paper Tongues
Toyota Center
March 3, 2011

More pics of the Linkin Park concert can be found in our slideshow.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

Rock writers cannot change what we see, but we can change how we see them. We can glean new ways to digest what we hear, or see live. It's a funny profession where you merely observe, because most of us suck at doing anything but listening to music and writing our thoughts.

Imagine having to have an opinion on everything you see. What if you had to write a review for every gas station and restroom you visited?

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Linkin Park should be critic-proof, out of the regard for the almost universal derision that's been rampant since they debuted with 2000's Hybrid Theory. It's like telling someone that McDonald's is bad for them or that the Speedo is a bad idea, unless you are Michael Phelps.

No, the thing about LP is that they show flashes of brilliance amidst the muck and mire. True it is that we just watched a whole Toyota Center full of people chanting, fist-pumping (well, there's no other term for it), and waving cellphones.

Their Rick Rubin-produced albums, 2007's Minutes To Midnight and last year's A Thousand Suns, made even the most vicious detractor tilt their head like a puppy hearing a whistle, scratch their heads and say "hmmmm..." So that's what they needed, a genius producer who could strip away the extraneous fat to get to the songs.

But what you get left with live is a crowd still amped on the older stuff - the screaming, the rapping, the digital manipulations, the last gasps of the '90s nu-metal brigade. Lead singer Chester Bennington has a better voice than people give him credit for, and the band knows how to write an anthem, even if your allegiance isn't there.

Thursday's Toyota Center gig had been postponed for a few weeks due to an illness involved Bennington, and the Houston date would be the last date on this leg of touring behind Suns.


Location Info

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Toyota Center

1510 Polk, Houston, TX

Category: Music

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Mack
Mack

I would have been pissed that the Prodigy did not open, were refunds offered if you wanted one?

dawn
dawn

my husband and I had a great time....chester sounded awsome!! yeah...they cancelled but u gotta give them some credit for rescheduling so quickly!!

Pregunta
Pregunta

Anybody remember what time the show ended?

Bill
Bill

What was up with the bass player and his rodeo outfit? Was he mocking Texas, pretending he was playing at the HLSR or just a fan of the cowboy lifestyle?

Mick
Mick

Really? Linkin Park and Paper Tongue put on a helluva show and we are discussing grammar?

Grammar Nazi
Grammar Nazi

In the first paragraph under the quote, second sentence: "glean" not "gleam." Gleam = to shine. Glean = to gather or unearth. I hope that was a simple typo, and not an egregiously bad misunderstanding of language.

I know this thing called Grammar. You've probably never heard of it.

Wyatt
Wyatt

"egregiously bad misunderstanding"

Not grammatically incorrect, but sloppy language. You deserve a leather elbow patch to the head.

DAC
DAC

Nicely done.

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