At the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, New Jersey, I went to see the Honda Civic Tour featuring Linkin Park as the headliner. The other bands featured on the tour are Incubus and Mutemath. I was mostly there to see Linkin Park, but it was worth it to stay for all bands involved.
Mutemath started the night, and I had no idea what to expect. After a few songs, I lost interest due to the largely uninteresting music and mildly annoying vocals.
Incubus played next, and they are another band I don’t know much about. Aside from a few of their hits, I didn’t know most of their songs. I sang along to the ones I knew, but mostly marveled at lead singer Brandon Boyd’s amazing voice. He sounds even better live than I remember him sounding on recordings, and Incubus ended up being a nice surprise.
Linkin Park played last, and they were whom I was most excited for. Being a huge fan of LP’s first 3 albums, I was praying they played mostly old songs. Their 2 new albums were alright, but I was waiting on old songs. I wasn’t disappointed as they started their set off with 3 older songs, including one of my favorites, Place For My Head. A few songs into the concert it started pouring, which made the concert even more epic. After screaming through songs like Breaking the Habit, Numb, and In The End, my voice was shot. Chester Bennington, however, continued to scream his lungs out, and he sounded amazing. Mike Shinoda was awesome as well, smiling through all of his raps and generally having a blast on stage.
Near the end, Linkin Park played Bleed It Out, but in the middle of the song they bridged into Sabotage by The Beastie Boys. It was a great tribute to the musical legends, especially so soon after the death of Beastie Boy Adam “MCA” Yauch. They played Sabotage perfectly, and transitioned right back into Bleed It Out.
Overall, the show was a blast. Incubus was a great warm-up, and Linkin Park was a fantastic mix of heavy screams, rocking choruses, and lyrically genius raps. I recommend trying to hop on the tour at whatever stop you can, especially if you are any fan at all of Linkin Park.
