At Monday’s “All Linkin Park Everything” Event At The Dirty 30, Fans Sang Their Hearts Out And Emptied Their Wallets For A Good Cause.
All photos by Karlo X. Ramos.
Following last week’s news that Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington was dead at 41 years old after having committed suicide in his California home, two local promoters swiftly worked together to make sure that anyone in Dallas harboring similar thoughts would know that suicide is rarely the answer to one’s problems.
On Thursday evening, the teams behind Third String Productions and All/Everything announced that they were teaming up to host an “All Linkin Park Everything” event at The Dirty 30 on Monday night, where fans of the band could come to collectively grieve the loss of Bennington’s life while also raising money for two local suicide awareness and prevention groups: Foundation45 and The Suicide & Crisis Center of North Texas.
It turns out the event was a needed one indeed among area Linkin Park fans: Well before the doors to the venue opened at 9 o’clock on Monday night, a line stretching at least 50 people long had formed, and less than 30 minutes into the event’s start, the venue was packed with fans bobbing their heads to and cathartically singing along to the music being played by All/Everything’s John Stewart and Blue The Misfit and TSPR’s Orlando Mendoza. It was a cool scene, for sure, watching these fans embrace one another’s shared fandom for Linkin Park and cheer as updates came from the stage as to the amount of money raised through their efforts.
Those updates started early, too: Not even an hour of the event had passed before it was announced that those in attendance had already collectively raised more than $1,000 for the two organizations it was benefiting. Fans entering the space were regularly offering more than the suggested $5 donation to enter the building, with at least one fan using the entire amount that she’d planned to spend on a ticket to August’s slated Starplex performance from Linkin Park to the night’s cause. By the night’s end, and with The Dirty 30 also donating a percentage of its bar sales to the cause, almost $3,000 would be raised in total for the two suicide awareness prevention organizations on hand for the night.
It was an uplifting thing to witness, and the good cause will continue next Monday too, as TSPR and A/E take their show on the road to Austin for a similar event hosted at that city’s Vulcan Gas Company venue, with donations there going to the Austin chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Better still, it was just a necessarily fun time, as the above slideshow from photographer Karlo X. Ramos more than shows.
To everyone involved, from the promoters to the hosts to the attendees: Well done.