The excitement surrounding Linkin Park’s first London show in years was palpable in the O2 Arena on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 – but there was a larger looming presence, as well.
Emily Armstrong was announced as the new singer of the band earlier this month, alongside a brand new album (From Zero) and the world tour the band is currently on.
And, during that short time, she’s already experienced some of the supreme highs and lows of the Linkin Park spotlight (intense criticism over some aspects of her life, making a public apology and performing on a live stream). But as the lights went down, most people only had one thing on their minds: Does she have what it takes to complete the Linkin Park line-up?
Rightly or wrongly, the underlying thought process will always, inevitably come back to Chester Bennington. The band’s original singer died by suicide in 2017, and his loss is still to this day a painful hole in the music industry. On top of that, he was, simply put, a powerful performer; both in terms of stage presence and technical abilities. He was a powerhouse, a force to be reckoned with, and a staunch creative.
So then, Armstrong has, unfairly, been pitted against his legacy. It is both easy to see why and understandable, but once she hit the O2’s stage, if she was feeling the pressure, she didn’t let it show.
Coming out of the gate with Somewhere I Belong and Crawling, Armstrong made sure her presence was felt. And, throughout the night, she certainly made her mark in the Linkin Park dynamic with some intense harmonies with Mike Shinoda and a constantly evolving stage presence.
It helped that some of Linkin Park’s legacy tracks – Crawling, The Catalyst, Given Up, etc – felt tailor-made for Armstrong’s raspy vocals. What’s more, the precision she exacted on slower tracks (Leave Out All The Rest, My December) elevated the songs to levels never before dreamed of.
However, while taking on some of Linkin Park’s powerhouse tracks, Armstrong struggled. In The End and Faint were shadows of their former selves, with the 38-year-old struggling to reach Bennington’s recorded vocal range. Shinoda even took over some extra vocals during What I’ve Done in what seemed like an attempt to cover Armstrong’s back a little. A disappointment, but certainly not the end of the world.
It would be easy for Linkin Park to rest on their laurels and focus on their older, better-known songs in the coming months and years, but that would be a mistake with Armstrong at the helm.
To be completely clear: Armstrong isn’t here to replace anyone. Nor is she here to emulate Bennington’s skills; she has her own arena-filling talents and she doesn’t need to wear anyone’s shoes to do so. It’s also very early days in Armstrong’s Linkin Park career, and they, as a unit, are no doubt still working out their new normal.