Video of the week - Linkin Park

In honor of their performance at the Bamboozle fest on Sunday, this week's video is Linkin Park's latest called "What I've Done". Not only do I love the song, I love the video for it as well. They've managed to put together a thought provoking display of some of the shameful hypocrisies that exist in our world.

They of course played this song at the show, and I was surprised by how silent the crowd got when they did. During all of their other songs, with the exception of two other new ones from their upcoming cd Minutes to Midnight which comes out next Tuesday, everyone was singing along at the top of their lungs. Now I know this cd hasn't come out yet and no one had probably heard the other two songs so that's reason for them to not sing along, but they've been playing "What I've Done" on the radio for several weeks now, yet it seemed like no one around us knew any of the lyrics to anything other than the chorus. They were all looking at me and the kiddie with mildly astonished looks cuz we did know all the lyrics. Hello? We knew the lyrics to the song within a day or two of it first premiering on the radio, they aren't that complicated to learn and remember. Obviously most of the people around us were big Linkin Park fans, how they could not know the lyrics is beyond me.

The place was mobbed. I have no idea how many people were there. My guess is somewhere around 30,000. Apparently people in Jersey don't know what garbage cans are for because the whole place was already littered, both inside the park and out in the parking lot, by the time we arrived at around 1:30 pm (think the gates opened somewhere around 10 am-ish), it was pretty disgusting. By the time we left at the end I wanted to burn my shoes because I had no idea what I'd been stepping in all day. About the only thing the garbage cans seemed to be used for was so that guys had a place to pee against or for people to vomit into.

I didn't like the fact that they had two stages next to each other in a couple of spots. I guess the idea was to keep the show moving...a band would play one stage and when they were done, the following band would play on the other stage while the first stage was prepared for the subsequent band. That sucked because it was hard to get near the stage to see a band you did like because there was a crowd already there watching a band you didn't.

And what was with the rides?? This was a fucking MUSIC festival, not a damn carnival! The rides just created more crowds in areas that were already crowded enough and made it all the more harder to walk around from one stage to the next.

We only ended up seeing about half the bands we wanted to because of scheduling conflicts with the different stages and the crowd made it all but impossible to go from one stage to the next in a reasonable amount of time so we limited ourselves to the bands we really, really wanted to see. They ended up being...Linkin Park, Armor For Sleep, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Reliant K, Yellowcard, Plain White T's, Halifax and Weird Al. We also caught a song or two by Fair to Midland, Scary Kids Scaring Kids, The Bled, Taking Back Sunday, The Matches and probably a couple of others while we were wandering around.

I'm assuming most people were there to see Linkin Park and only went to the stages of other bands because they knew one song by them from hearing it on the radio. We couldn't get near the stage for most bands, like Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, because most of the people there knew their one song "Face Down" from it being played on the radio. I know this because it's the only song 90% of them sang along with and then they all walked away when the band finished. Pisses me off. Let us REAL fans get to the front because we actually like them for more than just their one radio hit.

The bands we did see that I enjoyed the most were Halifax, Plain White T's, Weird Al and of course, Linkin Park. We were no where near close to the stage for Linkin Park, which really sucked on one hand because I wanted to be close to Chester, but was good on the other because we probably would have been crushed to death had we been any closer than we were. I doubt any of the pics I took of them will turn out because we were so far away, so here are a couple I swiped from the Bamboozle website:

There were quite a few meet & greets with the bands. The only two bands we actually got autographs from were Sherwood and Amber Pacific because no one was in line for them when we happened upon their booths. I did however go to the front of the line and take a few pics of some of the other bands like Halifax and The Matches, but those are on the camera I need to drop off and get the film developed for.

The weather was perfect. It was sunny and while we did get some sunburn, it wasn't sweltering hot. In fact it was only in the upper 50's with a nice cool breeze. Had it been any hotter I think I would have had a completely miserable time as opposed to just being mildly irritated by some of the crap we encountered.

Two more things I hated about the festival before I get my ass off here and into bed.

1) Why the fuck were people allowing others to squeeze in front of them to get closer to the stage? Try shit like that here in Chicago and you'll get your ass beat cuz if you didn't arrive early enough to be in front, no one's going to let you push past them to get there.

2) Have they not heard of yellow mustard in Jersey?? Since it was one of the shorter lines, we decided to get a couple of hot dogs and all they had was ketchup (EWWWWW...no one over the age of 10 should be putting ketchup on hot dogs) or spicy brown mustard. That's just nasty.

It was fun to travel out of state for the show, but I think I'll stick with going to shows closer to home. Speaking of shows, luckily we didn't spend all our money at the festival or while wandering around Manhattan cuz Warped Tour tickets are already on sale and I still need to get them, plus Linkin Park announced their U.S. tour dates the other day and tickets go on sale on the 19th. And I also just found out that Korn is doing the Family Value Tour again this year, this time with Evanescence, but I have to find out when they're coming to Chicago.

Looks like this year is going to be a good one for concerts. That'll make up for the lack of shows worth seeing last year and earlier this year.