I agree that the vocoder use was great, but it was still him. It was done in a way where you could still hear his normal voice along with the modded voice, so it was still like the classic duet. It truly was like he was singing for both of them.
I literally cried watching "Sorry For Now" be played. It has been my favorite Linkin Park song since the day we heard it in full, and to finally see him play it live was bittersweet. The way he had fun with the track, from just bopping around and even rapping Chester's part confidently. Man. I can't even describe the goosebumps I got from that. I have nothing to say. Wow.
thanks Mike!!! That over again papercut mix is really awesome, the sun goes down part gave my chills, i started to cry i aint gonna lie that was emotional. Papercut was Chesters fave LP song to play live and its my fave LP song
One thing to remember is that the stream doesn't have the crowd mic'd up. It sounded like a dead crowd because aside from the direct instrumental feeds, you only had Mike's vocal mic, which is of the cardioid variety. Those are made specifically to only receive sound from directly in front of the microphone, and not anywhere else. That you could even hear the crowd at all at the KROQ show is ridiculous. It sounded louder for the Identity show because we were listening from the crowd, rather from a (at times shoddily) mixed source.
New wallpaper for me, thanks for that! I was wondering this too. KROQ seemed much quieter. But your explanation, alongside Louis’s review makes a lot of sense!
I feel he should do the vocoder on the SFN bridge, only cause just rapping it straight up felt a little empty to me. But I absolutely loved the vocoder on Papercut's bridge, and it got me a little emotional because it felt like Chester was singing along in spirit. These two shows proved to me that a Linkin Park post-Chester is possible, not just to the fans but I think to the band as well. It won't be an easy road ahead, but Mike has shown it's possible.
I am aware that this is the case which is why I tried to not revolve my comment on that aspect. Not counting the streaming aspect, it just seemed like a lot of LP fans showed up to Identity since it was a free show whereas Weenie Roast was people there for headliners that so happened to also watch Mike.
Thanks a lot for the in-depth insight into what you experienced and felt at both shows Louis, it was a pleasure to read and is one of my favourite posts on this forum that I've ever read. I haven't watched the footage from either shows yet but will try and see them at some point this week, can't wait!
To answer your question, @Blake, it really felt like more people at the KROQ show knew who he was, and stuck around when he was about to come on. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense - the people at that show are so much more likely to know who Linkin Park is. And it really just felt that way - like, I'm sure people came for some of the bigger bands there, but a lot of those artists could be counted as "related acts," you know? I think I got the sense that less people at Identity knew who he was because I overheard so much about people being like, "Wait, who is Mike Shinoda?" Also, I feel like quite a few people left the crowd after Jay Park. There were a lot of die-hard fan boys and fan girls in the crowd and they just kind of left when Mike came on. It's not that people didn't stay for Mike, they did, but it felt like a crowd that was there for more reasons than just the music (e.g., the cultural celebration, the food, etc.). At KROQ, that's all people were there for. It's not that there weren't Linkin Park fans at the IdentityLA show - there definitely were. It just felt a bit more mixed. Oh my goodness, yes. I was scared for my life a bit. I felt so out of my element there as I watched Jay Park. Like, people really really lost their minds for Jay Park and it was a lot of super young people. And a lot of them just kinda left when Mike came on. Yeah, that can also give the wrong impression of the audience participation, for sure.
Thank you for such an expansive response to my question! I understand what you are saying. It seems a bit odd to me but I guess I was just wrong in my assumptions. And it is true that a lot of acts at Weenie Roast were related acts to Linkin Park but to me it felt like Mike still stood out on the lineup. He did a setlist I did not expect though so I think he made it work
Thank you for this review. I just watched the KROQ one on youtube. I'd expected it to be a happy experience but I ended up quite tearful - thought it would basically be the 6 songs he's put out from Post Traumatic and didn't realise he'd put LP songs in, especially doing some of Chester's parts. Well done to him for doing that though. Going to save the other show for tomorrow as I'm emotionally worn out from watching the first one! A couple of questions - why did Mike re-wind on Remember the Name? From the review here it sounds like he forgot to start the verse? When I watched it on youtube I wondered if it was because he decided he wanted to go through the crowd and knew he needed more of the track to do that in time? Also what is the vocorder exactly, does it produce a previously recorded version of Mike?
He got so caught up with engaging with the crowd that he forgot to start the second verse. That's the only reason he did that. A vocoder allows you to synthesize your voice - simply meaning you can change how it sounds. That can happen in so many different ways with the right kind of synthesizer equipment. Mike likes to add small modifications to his voice (typically changing the pitch) and add layers of pitches on top of it (making it sound like multiple voices).
The vocoder is a synth patch that plays notes/chords, but the base sound (or "carrier") is run through effects with parameters that listen to what comes in through the mic, and they basically shape the sound according to that input. One of those parameters, as an example, is a gate which only lets the sound through when there's input from the mic, so you don't just hear the chords blaring out when Shinoda isn't singing - his voice controls the amplitude of the vocoder signal. At times, Shinoda is manually playing those chords, like during the "About You" intro. The rest of the time, that information is already set up and just plays out alongside the backing instrumentation.