It's great to see how much respect Linkin Park are earning amongst the Australian audiences. Most comments on the facebook pages and soundwave forums have been praising them at how well they have performed.
I was front row for LP, gonna upload some photos and a video of Faint when I get around to it. The dude who commented earlier couldn't be more wrong. LP absolutely owned that crowd. I had a friend who was waiting up front for Metallica while LP were playing and he said he was surrounded by a few older blokes who were giving LP shit at the start of the performance and cheering them by the end. Almost everyone I've spoken to put them in the top performers of the day. There was just so much fucking energy through the entire performance. Got myself a nice little guitar pick out of it as well The novelty of seeing Blink 182 wore off pretty quick though, apart from a couple of their biggest songs which set a good atmosphere, it was like they didn't have enough material to fill their set so they just kept rambling on about stupid shit. Billy Talent, Flogging Molly, The Blackout and Sum 41 absolutely killed it as well. The Billy Talent mosh was so much more brutal than I was expecting it to be. APC was alright, Periphery too. Finished it all off with a bit of Metallica and Offspring, fuck they know how to put on a show. Honestly, could not have possibly asked for a better day yesterday. Almost puts me in a good mood about going back to Uni tomorrow
Unless times have changed over the past decade + a few when I was a huge Metallica fan, I am right. Even if that was the case, and the Metallica fans were being disrespectful to the bands that came before them, this behavior is nothing new. They have that reputation. They have had it for a really, really long time. Their fans for whatever reason get off on giving the opening acts a hard time. It's like a tradition now at a metallica show. Metallica and their management know this and will highlight that behavior. I guess it gives them the feeling of being badasses.
Australians are lucky bastards, Metallica, LP, APC & Puscifer all in one day. Plus Tool following in a couple of months. I am envious. The very fact that I'm sitting here typing this while listening to LP, Puscifer, Rory Gallagher, Christy Moore among others, the fact that I don't jeer bands I don't like, & the well conducted crowds a the 5 Metallica gigs I've been to, shows you aren't right. I know you're a superduper-hardcore LP geek, but why are you reacting (to what amounts to nothing more than a good natured ribbing at most) like Metallica and their entire fanbase kicked in your door and pimp slapped your goldfish? Don't be so sensitive to every little thing that may or may not be poking at fun at your favourite thing. Metallica don't pander to the vocal minority "METHUULLLL!!!11" portion of their fanbase (Load, Reload, S&M, Ja Rule/Swiss Beatz, Ray Davies, freaking Lulu). Or maybe the self-funded, decidedly diverse, Orion Music + More festival they started last year (& are continuing this year) and the bands they personally picked for the lineup. You being such a big LP fan you should know better than to cast such sweeping & negative generalisations over another band and it's fanbase (I know I've heard enough people say stuff like "oh all their songs sound the same", "oh, they're emo", "oh all their fans are annoying teenieboppers" about LP, I'm sure you're more than familiar). Especially a band that have helped LP out in the past taking them on the Summer Sanitarium tour in '03, of which LP (and pretty much every other band M brought on tour since) have commented on how well Metallica treated them. You know the crowd in Dublin '03 booed & bottled LP through their set, right? Did you also know later during Metallica's set Hetfield stuck up for them, saying how much he respected LP for sticking through and finishing their set when others would have given up? There are assholes in every fanbase, ignore them & don't let them colour you view of an entire group of people.
I said what I said because I used to be part of that fanbase. Before Linkin park was my favorite band, there was Metallica. I've been through three Metallica concerts and every time I've gone, I have seen disrespect toward whoever was playing before them. When I saw them at summer sanitarium, for example, there were lemons from fresh lemonade cups that were thrown onstage. It started at Linkin park. It escalated at Limp Bizkit to the point where they walked off stage and didn't complete their set. I've seen the fans turn their backs during the opening bands. Maybe it's because we live in different areas. The majority of the Metallica fans here are assholes. Yes, there are exceptions, though. Sorry for generalizing. That was wrong of me, by the way.
I agree, there seemed to be many negative comments on Facebook prior to Soundwave regarding Linkin Park being there but afterwards nothing but praise and admiration! I was also at the front and the crowd was going wild, everyone there was well behaved also (thanks!). Blink were a total waste of time, very sad that they have to use gay jokes and I fucked your mum jokes to get any attention. Thank you LP again for a fantastic performance!
Maybe they had heard about how Chester was sick so often and so were trying to force-feed him vitamin C....
Have to agree - the reviews across the web for LP on this tour have been nothing short of fantastic. Many, as others have said, have highlighted LP as being one of the top (if not THE top) performers of the day. I think cramming the 18-20 songs into such a short time frame really helped boost the energy of the set (above the level it was already at). Not to mention the guys played really well and put everything into each performance. Agree re: the comments on Blink 182 above. I used to love them when I was in high school but stopped listening to them after I saw them live all those years ago. They were exactly the same then as they are now - spend half their set talking sh*t that no one wants to hear, Tom D still can't sing live to save his life and the d*ck/I f*cked your mum jokes are starting to sound creepy given their age now.