Thanks to the power of the internet, 266 rock fans from 35 different countries and six continents — no Antarctica — were able to come together in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic for a special, one-off cover of Linkin Park‘s 2002 smash-hit In the End.
The four-minute, 35-second montage was posted to YouTube on the RocknMob channel on June 24.
The channel is known well for gathering large crowds of anonymous musicians virtually to cover infamous rock songs.
“2020 brought us a lot of challenges but they couldn’t stop us from rock-n-mobbing!” the video’s description reads.
Among the 250-plus headbangers, many of them hailed from Russia, as seen in the video.
One even played their own saxophone rendition of the MTV Music Award-winning song, while an American guitarist clad in a chicken costume shredded away to their heart’s content.
While the creators have invited musicians across the world to cover the likes of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody as well as many other tunes, their take on In the End serves as their first official “international rockmob.”
Before the global health crisis, the RocknMob team organized flashmob-like gatherings, where hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of musicians would gather in one specific location to jam together.
Back in August 2017, the channel organized a group of more than 200 musicians to play Linkin Park’s 2003 hit Numb in Moscow, Russia.
The critically acclaimed cover was filmed as a tribute to the band’s late frontman, Chester Bennington, who died in July 2017.
Last week, In the End became Linkin Park’s second music video on YouTube to reach more than 1 billion views.
Numb is currently the California-based group’s most viewed music video overall. It has more than 1.4 billion views, as of this writing.
Questions about COVID-19? Here are some things you need to know:
Symptoms can include fever, cough and difficulty breathing — very similar to a cold or flu. Some people can develop a more severe illness. People most at risk of this include older adults and people with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease. If you develop symptoms, contact public health authorities.
To prevent the virus from spreading, experts recommend frequent handwashing and coughing into your sleeve. They also recommend minimizing contact with others, staying home as much as possible and maintaining a distance of two metres from other people if you go out.
In situations where you can’t keep a safe distance from others, public health officials recommend the use of a non-medical face mask or covering to prevent spreading the respiratory droplets that can carry the virus.
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