It's been 4 years since Lincoln Park released its last official album.
When I first came into contact with their songs, I was a fourth- and fifth-grade elementary school student. I was sitting on a long-distance bus, fiddling with a miscellaneous MP3, stuffed with a bunch of songs that I had forgotten to search for keywords to download. I kept pressing the cut button to find a song that suited my mood when a string of characters slowly scrolled across the narrow electronic screen: "Faint – Linkin Park." I thought I was even pronouncing "homework" in English, and at least two of those three words would have challenged my vocabulary, but fortunately music knows no borders.
Although the headphones do not have noise reduction functions, as soon as the music starts, people instantly jump to a completely different world. This prelude siren-like sound, the rapid drum beat in the background, sounds - how does it remind people of "The Flying Policewoman"? I even complained to my friends that the singer ended up singing dumb. Having said that, I didn't realize that the song had made me feel good, and for a long time afterward, its melody lingered in my head and was restless.
Shortly thereafter, I was exposed to another song called Numb/Encore, which was brainwashed again, but at first I thought it was the main character who rapped it. When a cool classmate asked me if I had ever heard "Numb," I confidently asked, "You're talking about Jay-Z's Numb/Encore, right?" But it also frightened him.
Then I began to seriously understand this band, and the channels of understanding at that time were mainly Baidu Encyclopedia, Baidu Tieba and the like. Remember the wikipedia entry that said that the band had only debuted for a few years but had achieved countless successes, and that their idol was Marilyn Manson (now this one is gone). For me at the time, the band's appeal was indescribable. I felt like I had become a rock-and-roll "Cool Boy" too.
I remember when the first transformers movie came out, although the animation of the original G1 did not belong to my childhood memories, I still watched the trailer and information of the movie countless times. One is that boys will never be resistant to deforming combat robots, and because Lincoln Park will sing the theme song for this movie, the happiness is super doubled. And when the movie was officially released, the music that sounded after Optimus Prime's impassioned speech at the end of the film even made me feel more excited than the deformation of the robot.
I also led many classmates and friends around me to listen to Lincoln's songs together. We would even play music with the classroom speakers after class, and then one by one with brooms and guitars, pretending to be yelling, which is a bit shameful in retrospect, but it is really fun.
As Linkin Park collaborated with more and more film and television works, the band's popularity continued to open up in China, and "League of Legends" also used their songs as the theme song, and several of the classic tracks once became the video soundtrack of "Bad Street" on the Internet. But at this time, there were also many voices questioning whether Lincoln Park was not a rock band, but a pop group. For such remarks, my heart will naturally be a little unhappy, and I have also confronted netizens on the Internet. But at the time, I actually knew that since the third album of the band, the style of the band has gradually changed, and it is no longer limited to what we looked like when we first became obsessed with them, and the number of "lyric songs" has increased. At that time, I also had a little bit of a loss in my heart, but I still thought that at least the new album would still have a few songs that retained a little of the original flavor.
The only two concerts I've been to so far have been in Lincoln. The first time was at the Venetian Hotel in Macau in 2009, where I, along with a few die-hards, experienced what is "the best scene in the world" means. At the beginning, I was holding a digital camera and trying to take some videos and photos, but the camera didn't have a battery, but I was able to immerse myself more seriously in the live performance. Honestly, this is not suitable as the first concert of our lives, because it instantly raises our threshold for concert effect. After the concert, we also met Mr. Hahn, who was single, and wanted to go up and shake hands, but was pulled away by the security guard.
The second was at asiaworld-expo in Hong Kong in 2013. This time I prepared in advance, charged enough for the phone, and for a long time I was holding the phone and reluctant to put it down. In fact, this kind of operation has a huge impact on the feeling of presence, but what I think in my heart is, "Shoot a little more this time, and there will be a chance to watch it next time, anyway, there will be the next time, right?"
In fact, there are many memories of Lincoln, and their music has indeed accompanied me in many of my uplifting and low moments. And I thought that I could get a fairly good English score later, and even embark on the road of learning foreign languages, to a large extent, it was inseparable from the imitation of their songs when I was a child. But there is nothing else to be said for.
Later, as I grew older, there were more chores and pressures in life and study, and I was no longer as fanatical about band idols as I used to be. So, I slowly entered a new rhythm, that is, every few years, wait for them to release a new album, listen to what new style has changed this time, whether there are new songs that have the taste of the past, and then continue to wait, back and forth.
On July 20, 2017, the band's lead singer, Chester Bennington, hanged himself at home at the age of 41.
At that time, I was doing some errands in Hangzhou and living in my cousin's house. When I got up that morning, I was not very awake, and I saw the overwhelming news push on my mobile phone, as well as the news bombardment in WeChat, sent by friends and family, and I felt very trance for a while. Staggering out the door, I saw my sister looking at me uneasily outside, and carefully told me about it again. "I see," I replied, and sat down on the couch. "Is it true or false?" I didn't think much of it and didn't react to it. It's just that I may have just woken up with some discomfort, feeling that people are shaking and feeling a little dizzy, so I have to support my eyes with my hands, and my hands are constantly sweating. Strangely, I rarely sweat.
I've learned that Chester had had bad things happened to him when he was young, and I'd heard that he had faced some mental and emotional problems, but who would have thought that this singer, who had used his singing to encourage countless fans around the world, was naughty and positive in front of the camera, would end his life in such a lonely and desperate way. A few months ago, he also used a performance to mourn his friend who died of depression. And it was only two months after the release of the new album. Even two days before the accident, he was happily playing games with his family.
But perhaps, we really can't empathize with the torture he has been going through, so we have to face him so suddenly.
Originally, I thought that the worst future of this band was at most the heat dissipated, every few years to launch an album, and then Jiang Lang exhausted, slowly passed, and finally announced the dissolution, and then after a dozen or twenty years, a few old men really got old and then found a chance to reunite, opened several concerts that were not enough, and harvested a wave of feelings. And now, how I wish the good guys could develop like this.
Every year on July 20 for the past few years, I've wanted to write something, but in the end I've stopped talking. Looking back, how much of an impact can these things have on our lives? They are just a few foreigners across the Pacific Ocean from us, and the songs of the past can still be listened to. And there are so many bands, so many songs to listen to, I have a lot of options? But having said that, every once in a while, I can't stop being sad. After all, it was the band that accompanied me throughout my teenage years.
After Chester left, the band fell silent for a long time. But another lead singer, Mike, who is also the soul of the band, expressed his desire to continue the band, while insisting that he would not use holograms or other things to consume the deceased Chester. I am very supportive of this and hope that they will be able to reinvigorate themselves and, as in the past, use music to bring upward strength to fans and comfort Chester's soul.
And I would like to use this scattered journal text to my favorite band, remembering the lead singer, Chester Bennington.