“By Myself”
Walking onto the general admission floor with all the strobe lights and laser lights flashing and the music pulsating all around me, I realized thigh-high boots were definitely the wrong shoes to wear. I was surrounded by people forming and joining mosh pits while opening band, Pendulum, was jamming away on the stage. At this point, it dawned on me that the style was more grunge punk rock than trendy “rock star’s girlfriend” style. During the intermission before Linkin Park was to take the Xcel Energy stage, a girl tapped me on the shoulder to compliment my boots. Amanda Freund was dressed in a cleavage baring black mini-dress with black lace-up knee-high boots, and she accessorized with multiple strands of silver necklaces. After immediately bonding over feeling over-dressed, we parted ways to enjoy the concert, and I continued to cover style at the Linkin Park show at the Xcel Energy Center. “Somewhere I Belong”
As I walked the corridors between intermissions, I noticed a similar trend in the crowd. Easy comfort and grunge punk rock style was the name of the game. Everyone was wearing t-shirts (noticeably a lot of Linkin Park concert shirts), jeans, and skateboarding sneakers. I began talking to a group of women and asked why they chose the outfits they did for the concert. One woman stated she wore her military-inspired leather blazer because it “is trendy, and I have seen one of the guys in Linkin Park wear a jacket similar to this in a photo shoot. Plus, it’s Minnesota, and I have to wear a jacket. Why not look cute too?” As for the other girls, they chose their shirts because they were comfortable and it allowed them to move and dance freely. “Breaking the Habit”
All four of these girls were just a small sample of the people that were wearing skinny jeans or jeggings. This was not a trend that I saw just on women. There was a large population of men there that were also wearing these styles of jeans. However, the men and women were wearing different styles of these jeans. The men took their skinny jeans inspiration from the 80’s style acid-washed jeans. This made their jeans the focal point of their outfits. As for the women’s skinny jeans, the style was more subdued, because they were wearing basic light or dark denim jeans to be complimentary to the shirt that they were wearing.
“Blackout”
The color that dominated a majority of the concert goers clothing was black. Everything was in black, from jean to accessories to shirts to shoes. Black was definitely in. While I was perusing the souvenir stand, I noticed that all of the shirts and sweatshirts were black except for two, which were purple and white that had black screen-printing on them. I asked Linkin Park fanatic, Tracy Zitzow, why she chose to wear a black shirt. She stated that, “Linkin Park’s music is a little dark. It provokes a mood which allows me to breakout and express my feelings. So, I figured that black was the most appropriate color for this event.” “One Step Closer”
As the encore song, “In the End”, ended and the lights came on, I took a moment to check out all the other concert goers. They were collecting their belongings and heading out into the brisk St. Paul night. As I was putting my boots back on, because dancing was just not happening with them on, I gazed up and saw Amanda from earlier in the night. I trotted over to her as quickly as I could without tripping. We raved about the concert and decided to go check out some more fashion, because in the end despite the casual, laid-back look… fashion’s all that matters. At least to Amanda and I.
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