During his Saturday night performance at London’s Wembley Arena, Machine Gun Kelly took a moment to pay tribute to his close friend, Chester Bennington, with a powerful and emotional speech.
Although the Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington had always been open about his depression and battle with addiction, his sudden suicide shocked everyone in the rock scene. Not only his fans but also his bandmates and friends from the music world were devastated by his death. One of the people most affected by this tragic news was Machine Gun Kelly.
As many of you may know, Linkin Park was on tour when Bennington suddenly passed away. On this tour, MGK was also playing with them. In fact, about a month before Bennington’s death, he took the stage with Linkin Park in Poland during their European tour. The devastating news came about a week before the North America tour, which would also include MGK.
Remembering these bitter times during his latest performance in London, Machine Gun Kelly expressed his love and respect for the late vocalist by sharing a moving tribute to him. In his emotional speech, he described Bennington as a ‘great human being.’
MGK, who seems to remember the traumatizing moment he received the news of his death, also said that life is short but worth living and that striving for something worthwhile even though it is difficult. Pointing to the emotional moment they shared, he said that moments like this can help and that he hopes the audience will capture many more of them.
Here is what Machine Gun Kelly said during the emotional moment of his concert:
“What a great human being. Let me guys give you a f*cking encouragement. We had a tour that we were about to start, and three days before we started that tour, Chester passed away. The last time I saw him was here in Europe, so I encourage you, because life is short, to go live this life.
I know it’s hard, man. I know this shit is f*cking hard. But nights like tonight make life worth it. So I hope, when you leave here, you find more nights like this. Because you live this short life. I love you very much.”
This isn’t the first moving word from the MGK about Bennington. A week after his death, he shared a cover of ‘Numb’ to present his homage to his friend, and the emotion that pervaded this song very clearly demonstrated Machine Gun Kelly’s feelings about his friend’s loss.
You can listen to MGK’s speech and cover of ‘Numb’ below.
