I, for one, am thoroughly grateful for the fact that my dad is not only a huge fan of Linkin Park but also fond of attending live concerts. Not many people are like my dad - an avid fan of Linkin Park, Green Day and My Chemical Romance at his age. If not for him, we wouldn’t have flown all the way down to Macao just to catch Linkin Park live at the Venetian on the 16th of August.

Since we’d seen them live once already at Singapore, my mum opted out of the concert, and said she’d prowl along the massive food court that was located in the shopping mall connected to our hotel. We all knew that she was going shopping instead of eating, though.

And so, we sat down in our seats in the rather small indoor stadium and waited for the concert to begin. A word of advice, if you’re thinking of attending a live concert - you really don’t have to rush to your destination, because celebrities are always late. Unless, of course, you are one of those rabid, adoring fans who arrive five hours early to secure the best standing room spots. (In all honesty, I was all for arriving five hours early, but my dad refused to hear any of it.) However, like I’d mentioned before, celebrities are - for a lack of a better word to emphasize my point - always late, and so for a good 40 minutes before the concert started, we observed the people who had managed to get standing room tickets jealously. Or at least, my dad and I did, while my brother and sister begged for popcorn. Another piece of advice for anyone who wants the best out of a live concert: snatch standing room tickets if you can. It makes the experience so much better.

And so, while waiting for Linkin Park to make their appearance, I reflected, and figured that the special thing about concerts is that they bring all sorts of people together. There were people of all different races in the crowd, from all over the world, I’d bet - all united even if just for this short period of time in their love for Linkin Park.

Next to me sat a quiet-looking girl, a little older than me I supposed, texting on her handphone in Mandarin. Well, that had me at a loss for conversation, because even with my Chinese heritage I knew only a dismal amount of Mandarin, definitely not enough to strike a conversation. However, when she caught me looking at her, she grinned at me and I grinned back for no apparent reason whatsoever. See? I told you, rock concerts have the power bring the world together. They have the ability to make people smile at complete strangers.

Anyway, after forty minutes of observation and no Linkin Park I was becoming a little twitchy, and the fact that we had run out of popcorn was not helping.

Then, the lights dimmed. The crowd cheered.

I nearly died of oxygen deprivation with all the screaming I did, as everyone in the seating room stood up in one collective movement (therefore defeating the purpose of having a designated seating room in the first place,) and the stage flooded with light and Linkin Park and music.

They opened to a wild, cheering crowd, starting off slowly, building the anticipation, until the distinguishable, grungy guitar riff of ‘Given Up’ kicked in with a flash and a bang and drove the audience to hysterics.

One of the things that managed to penetrate the euphoria was the fact that the sound system couldn’t handle the rock music very well, at least, not as well as the superior Singapore stadium sound system. After a while, however, no attention was paid to the quality of the sound system - at least not when Chester started ‘From The Inside’ with the obligatory, grating, heavy metal scream - the one that made the audience scream madly back in ecstasy.

This was different from concerts like Lady Gaga or Gwen Stefani. Without the focus on flashy costumes, elaborate sets and backup dancers, all that was left to appreciate was the raw essentials of music and simple, meaningful lyrics. The pounding drums, the elaborate screech of guitars, the grating turntable scratches and the harsh vocals - the very best of nu metal onstage. Next to me, the girl I had labeled as ‘quiet’ loudly proved me wrong as she screamed out the lyrics to ‘No More Sorrow‘ and ‘What I’ve Done’ alongside me.

The band sped through song after song after song, lost in the current of energy buzzing through the stadium. Cellphones, cameras and glo-sticks waved madly about. In the standing room, the people were in a frenzy, dancing wildly among the pulsating strobe lights from the stage.

The music didn’t stop. The energy didn’t stop. It went on, and on, and on, and on.

However, my throat did not go on-and-on, and so it protested its overuse - painfully. I ignored in in favor of the next song - ‘Crawling’.

But nobody cared how sore their throat was, anyway, if the cheering crowd was any indication.

They stormed into their new smash hit, ‘New Divide’, to end the night, but the enthusiastic audience refused to let them go. We cheered hard enough to bring the roof down, and so they graced the stage once more with a gritty, heart-thumping rendition of ‘One Step Closer’.

Then they left, and no matter how hard we cheered and stomped and called for an encore, the concert had ended. The audience dispersed slowly, with the last strains of the guitar melodies and drumrolls still playing in their ears, which were numb from the intensity and the proximity of the music, feeling satisfied and content with the spectacular performance.

And I? I went back to the hotel room, nursed my sore throat, and dreamt of Linkin Park coming to Malaysia for a concert.