Fan Review: Wisdom, Justice and Love In Moscow

Linkin Park in Moscow
Fan Review by
Kinomonstr

Having woken up one beautiful morning in June, I didn’t know yet what I was going to
do the whole day long: listening to a radio station I’ve never listened to before and never will again.
All for the sake of winning the contest that was giving the chance to see the
group to which I was headbanging at school, the group whose new album I’ve waited
for, entering the institute.
I’ve listened to infinite hours of not-so-good (shitty) music for the sake of one and a half hours of their musical creations. I wanted to go to the Linkin Park concert SO badly.
From a friend’s message I have learned that morning, that there was the last of a series of competitions on the aforementioned radio station, which made it possible to receive an invitation to the free concert that was going to be not just somewhere, but at freaking Vasilevsky Spusk!

“Last contest, – was going through my head. – Yeah, like we have SOOO many chances to win, like… none”. But nevertheless I’ve started to test my luck. According to the rules the competition was to type a code first, but that wasn’t true. The essence of the contest consisted in your level of ninja-esque ten-finger button typing techniques and speed of your reaction because the code was only the beginning, after the code you had to fill out a page of registration with that speed too!

…About 6 hours after my friend’s message and after 2 unsuccessful attempts, me and
my friend heard familiar notes of “Numb” again and we ran to our computers. Heart beating like crazy, hands shivering. And here is the code again. Yessss, I typed it in fast enough to be among the first hundred people who did it. Now the registration. Name, surname, e-mail, phone number, now the button press..
FUCK!
Third failed attempt. Depressive thoughts that were approaching againg were interrupted by the next message of my friend: “User is successfully added. The password is sent on email specified by you”.
The jaw slowly dropped to the floor. Strength sufficed only to write him “congratulations”. “OK, I’ll continue to torture my ears tomorrow,” – I thought and left to practise cardistry. An hour passed. Radio, which wasn’t turned off, started to play Numb again. Let’s give it another try, I thought. This time I was a little prepared, in advance having filled all information needed in a notebook to copy it, which meant considerably reduced time of filling out registration forms.
So here’s the code again. Got to the registration page, name and surname, email,
phone number…
Later my friend received the message from me with the request to print the just received certificate.
I was going to see Linkin Park live.

23.06.2011.
14:00. Insanely happy, mumbling LP songs, I left my home.
15:00. Met my friend, now there’s two of us insanely happy people.
16:00. Left the underground, convulsively trying to think, where we need to go.

16:30. In the shirt, stuck to me from sweating, I stood behind the big crowd, which was looking at the location 200 meters away from us. In 4 hours the concert was beginning, in 2 they were starting to pass us to the scene. Carrying blue paper bracelets-passes, we were ready for action at any second. But for now we had to wait. Sounds of the soundcheck reached us from the distance. Because of boredom, people started throwing yellow baloons in the sky. But we heard an enthusiastic shout and the crowd started to move, and with every step I got closer and closer. Passing metal detector frames were left behind and we were there. The big minus was that it was forbidden to take water with you, it was necessary to leave it at the “frames”, but the pleasure was bigger than thirst.

19:00. An hour passed as we stood at the location. We were standing there exhausted from thirst under the cloudless Moscow sky. Some guys were helping to take girls, fainting from dehydration and constriction. Exclamations “Linkin Park! Linkin Park!”
were quickly replaced with “Water! Water!”, which to my astonishment, was distributed at the corner of the stage. I don’t know if this was done by the organizers but whoever that was, thanks.

20:25. Nerves on limit. At any moment the show could begin. Thirst wasn’t leaving, feet gave away for weariness…and it began. The new intro made everyone go crazy. What heat, what thirst, what weariness – Linkin Park is on the scene! And then the intro stopped. Boom! – bright lights of fireworks forced people to shout because of the undescribable happiness. And then, with the guitar riffs of “New Divide”, people started to jump and sing along with Chester. It was an amazing cocktail of happiness, madness and excellent music. People clapped to Rob’s drum parts as one, shouting “I’ve given… UUUUUUP!”, and danced like maniacs.

Linkin Park have arranged us a holiday in the middle of the summer, but the fans together with lprussia.com have decided to make this day even more awesome. Before the concert some people have approached us with a big pile of paper. “Take a couple yourselves and take everything further”. There was one of the three words: “WISDOM”, “JUSTICE” and “LOVE” on each sheet, and as soon as the crowd has heard Martin Luther King’s voice before “Iridescent”, hundreds of hands holding these sheets of paper went up in the sky. But it was not enough. When Chester sang: “Where oceans bleed into the sky” a multi-colored cloud of confetti appeared above the whole crowd.

I liked the setlist they’ve played. Here we have “In The End”, “When They Come For Me”, “Crawling”, and “What I’ve Done”… Perhaps, to make my happiness peak, there had to be “Wretches And Kings”, but this is just caviling. It was an unforgettable day. It was the first big concert in my life, and it was a FREE concert of one of my favorite bands. This day, I am sure, all who were in that huge crowd of fans received a huge charge of positive energy which hasn’t left since the last seconds of “Bleed It Out”. Hell, I still feel bits of this energy even when I type the last words of this little review.

Adie Note: Thanks for this great review! The Russian fans kicked ass with their flash mobs during the show, so awesome! Well done, lprussia.com!

Watch the performance of “Iridescent” here: