Lizel Strömberg

Post Traumatic Tour - Stockholm
I originally wasn't planning to write a blog post about attending Mike Shinoda's concert in Stockholm at Berns, that an Instagram post would be enough. I think I mainly thought in that way because I knew I wouldn't get as good photos as I know I would be able to get if I have the access. Another reason why was also because I wanted to make sure I enjoyed every minute of the show and not think about getting footage or notes to write a post. But less than half way through the concert, the impact of what I experienced would be way too much to tell in one short IG post. I decided that I would write my thoughts about seeing one of my childhood idols for the first time and the roller coaster of emotions I experience through the music. This post is mainly for my own sake and if you find anything worth remembering after reading this, it would make me happy. Let's take this from the top!
As for long as I remember I've always been a huge fan of Linkin Park, ever since I first saw the music video to "In The End" on TV in the early 2000. I can hear that intro of "In The End" anywhere and I would recognize it immediately. Their music has had a huge impact on me and it have helped me through a lot of rough times. I can remember in my early teens whenever I was so angry that I didn't know what to do with myself, I would put Linkin Park on my CD player, play the music out loud just to feel the beat and hear Chester scream. Even if I couldn't scream myself, hearing Chester scream made up for it at the moment. 
As I'm not older than I am, I were not able to travel too far to catch one of Linkin Park's concerts when they were as most active, I never got the opportunity to see them live. Chester one of the lead vocals of the band, sadly passed I away last year and I say this for everyone that is a fan of Linkin Park that the band will never be the same without him. Linkin Park performed in Sweden last year but I was too afraid attending the big festival they performed at because of the increased number of sexual assualt and rape that unfortunately took place last year at numerous of festival in Sweden. I still regret not attending the festival but after seeing Mike Shinoda this week, it eased the pain.
I'm not going to lie, I was wondering how Mike's set would be like with him doing it without the rest of the members of Linkin Park. I didn't knew what to expect when hearing the Linkin Park's songs without having Chester there and I'm sure I wasn't the only one thinking about this. I had seen some of the setlist for shows earlier on the tour and it contained music from Linkin Park, Fort Minor and Mike Shinoda's own material. From the songs I could see, I knew the show would easily become very emotional. 
The concert started late but for someone that were very excited to even be there, I didn't mind at all. You could feel the excitment that was increasing every minute and the audience were chanting before Mike entered the stage. He started off with performing "Petrified". I won't lie but I haven't listened through Fort Minor's releases as much but I really enjoy that song!
I really liked the mix of music from Fort Minor, Linkin Park and Mike Shinoda's own solo material. It gives the fans to connect with Mike through the different areas of his music careers. Even if you are a long time fan or a newer fan of Mike there will be at least a couple songs you would recognize. Shinoda perfomed songs as "When They Come For Me", "Welcome" and "Hold It Together".
 
One particular part of the set that stood out was during the medley they played. Mike would take down the tempo and play a couple songs acoustic. I think this part vary a bit depending on what the audience like to hear and what Mike had planned to do. In Stockholm he performed an acoustic version of "Heavy" which is from Linkin Park latest released album "One More Light". "Heavy" was one of my most played songs last year and I was very happy to get to hear that song live. 
In this medley, Shinoda also performed "Numb" and "In The End" which are two of my favorite songs of all time from my childhood. Every time I would see those music videos on TV I would get so excited.   
I know a lot of people were a bit worried about Chester's parts of the Linkin Park's songs, but I think Mike did a great job at performing them by himself with the help of his band and the audience. I really appreciated the fact that Mike let us in the audience to participate in the show with singing the lines of Chester's parts. It was so much warmth in that venue, as much as the fans were there to support Mike, he was there to support us that also have felt a loss when Chester passed away.
At one part of the show, Mike had a speech about mental health. He said that physical health is like the mental health. That most of people have no problem with acknowledging when people feel bad because of a physical illness, that it's not something weird. But if you would say that you brain doesn't feel right, people don't always treat you right. This way of seeing mental health, needs to stop and we need to get better at it.
His speech about mental health really hit close to home as I've been struggling with my mental health for a while now, specially the past few years. I've heard people talk about this issue so many times and seen comments about it on the internet but seeing how Mike take a part of his set to talk about this issue felt so real to me and really hit me so hard that it even made me cry. It's hard for me to give a fair insight of his speech so I will just link a video of it in this post for you to listen to it and also hear how Shinoda sings "In The End" together with the audience.
I'm very impressed over Mike for releasing his first solo album and going out on a tour within a year of Chester passing. It must take a lot of strength every night to go up on that stage to play songs that has such a strong connection to the band. I know a lot of people have been very questioning about how Mike would handle being a soloartist, if he would make it by his own and create as good music as what Linkin Park has released over the years. 
Mike is truly one of the greatest songwriters and producers I know about, I think he has done such a great job with working on his soloalbum "Post Traumatic". When you listen through the album, you can feel the frustration, the sorrow through his music and some of his thoughts and emotions he experienced after the passing of Chester. It's very real and one particular track "A Place To Start" on the album makes my heart break every time I hear it. In the end of the song you get to hear Mike's closed ones talking in their condolences on his voice mail after the news of Chester. A detail like that makes the work more real and true to the message of the song. 
I've been at many different concerts but I have never experienced such an emotional concert in my life as Mike Shinoda's. I didn't know what to feel during the show. One minute I was smiling and laughing but the next minute I was feeling sad and even shed a tear. 
 
I've always been trying to understand why some hardcore fans would travel to all these different countries to attend numerous concerts on the very same tour. I've been a huge fan of many artists and I love seeing concerts but I haven't understand it until now. After seeing Mike on stage, had a roller coaster of emotions and hearing some of your favorite songs live with other fans, I get it now. It's the feels you want to feel, you want to experience all of it again through the music. You want to show the appreciation to the artist and have that moment of escape of the reality even if it's only for 2 hours. I get it now. If I was able to, I would have loved seeing Mike at one more stop. Only to have that escape of the reality for one more time. 
I'm actually very amazed over the few photos I managed to capture of Mike. The only camera equipment I had was my small compact camera which doesn't have a lightsensitive lens at all or the capacity to capture as good quality photos as my DSLR camera. Heading into the concert, I was fine with only getting one shot to be able to post about the show but in my surprise I ended up getting a few shots good enough to make this post.
It was so hard being on set and seeing all these nice opportunities to get great photos and not being able to capture it. The lights was very nice, the audience and Mike were close to each other. The drummer and guitarist also had very nice backlight and would put their magic on the set. I saw a lot of great moments that I would have loved to being able to capture but couldn't... It definitely made me a bit sad but at the same time, I'm glad that I was there to only enjoy the concert for this time. Some day I hope I will get the opportunity to capturing the moments of a Mike Shinoda show, but for now: this is what I you get from me. 
I'm aware of the fact that I have tons of content that I probably should have posted before this one but I had to create this post for my own sake as this event really made a big impact on me. I didn't want me to create this post when I had lost some of the memories over time. I don't know if you will get something out of this post. It's not really a review of the concert since I can't be objective as this is an artist and music I've treasured for such a long time. This text might be a mess and be all over the place but I hope you enjoyed reading my thoguhts and experiences by attending this show. 
 
Thank you to Mike Shinoda for a great concert, for all the music throughout the years, for being true and honest with the art you create! ❤️
 
This was it for this time. Until next time, ingat!
/Lizel