Linkin Park was the first English band of almost every kid born in India during the 90s. It was our gateway to English music. There are SO many, SO many people in India who are die-hard Linkin Park fans. Even those who barely listened to music knew Linkin Park. It was like Michael Jordan was to basketball, like David Beckham was to football. Linkin Park being your favorite band was so mainstream that people made fun of it.
I might have been 12 or 13 when I first heard Numb. I had every single Hybrid Theory, Reanimation, Meteora and Collision Course song in the 8th grade on my iPod. I knew every word of every song, including the remixed Reanimation songs. After Minutes to Midnight came out, I had a filtered Linkin Park playlist that only had 42 songs that I really loved (that playlist now has 70 songs).
Bands don't usually go to India on their tours. They don't stand to make the money that they make here because the currency isn't as strong and the tickets end up being too expensive for people to afford them. Chester and Mike promised they'd do their best to tour India on multiple occasions but I guess it didn't make financial sense for them to do so.
I came to the United States two years ago. And during the fall of 2017 they were supposed to perform in New York’s Citi Field. I thought about how watching Linkin Park live would be the best night of my life. Every day I listened to my playlist. I watched videos of them on tour. I looked at the setlists of their performances. I couldn't wait to see the band I loved in the flesh for the first time.
When Chester passed, I couldn't make sense of it all. It was so far from anything I expected that I could not process it at all. I had emotionally invested myself in Linkin Park so much over the course of my teenage years that this felt like a lie. A big hoax. It couldn't be true.
Luckily I had friends who felt the same way and I didn't feel alone. I had people who understood how I felt. But a couple of days later, it dawned on me that I wouldn't ever get to watch them play.
I felt abandoned by Chester. It's selfish to think about missing out on seeing him perform when he was gone but the idea of never getting to see them perform destroyed my already broken heart. I started feeling guilty whenever I did something else and it slipped my mind. I felt like I wasn't mourning him enough. I listened to Linkin Park every day, all the time. I still do.
I couldn’t get myself motivated to do the things I was supposed to do. I wasn’t excited to do anything. Anything happy would make me feel guilty. I watched full length concerts loudly in my room and had my own mini concerts. I have consumed every article, every video, every song related to Chester and Linkin Park possible over the past 10 days.
Initially, the songs haunted me. I’d listen to the lyrics and almost feel like I was listening to musical suicide notes. But that was just the nature of the songs. Chester maybe gone but there is so much of Chester that is still alive every day. He is alive in his songs and I for sure will be listening to Linkin Park and in my own way, keeping him alive, at least until the end of my days.
