Guitar publication Guitar World has put out their recent interview with the reclusive and mysterious Brad Delson of Linkin Park, following a preview article late last month. The interview touches on the process of crafting Linkin Park's recent studio album From Zero, and the live shows that have unfolded as part of the subsequent album cycle.
On readying Alex Feder as a replacement for the live shows:
“In terms of getting Alex up to speed, he learned everything. He and I went back and forth to make sure the feel was right. There are certain songs where, even if they’re not the most technical, there’s a feel that’s unique to my playing. I really wanted Alex to get that right, especially on the iconic songs.”Speaking about choosing the guitars and other gear used on From Zero, Delson cleverly describes Linkin Park's sonic arsenal as "tools in a tool chest":
“The PRS really defines Hybrid Theory and Meteora. With From Zero we gave ourselves permission to use iconic or identifiable elements of our sound that we loved from the past but that we’d moved away from to experiment.Delson also speaks on his own personal album highlights, "Two Faced" and "Casualty":
“In some ways, From Zero was a homecoming and a kind of unlocking of all the tools in our tool chest. Rather than trying to reinvent – though there are moments of reinvention – it was a chance to rediscover our favorite tones and guitars, and blend them all together.”
“I think Two Faced is really fun to play. It has the nuances of a classic Linkin Park or even before we were called Linkin Park – when we were called Hybrid Theory. I don’t know if Two Faced represents me in the present, the past, or all of the above.
“Then, stylistically, Casualty feels like a bullseye to me in terms of energetically going hard and taking the training wheels off. It just feels full throttle – I love it.”You can read the full Guitar World interview here.
Source: Guitar World
Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda has been announced as the the celebrity guest who will be appearing in the next episode of the Mythical Kitchen series Last Meals. This segment, hosted by Josh Scherer, features lengthy interviews with guests over a meal that they would choose as their last ever. Most recently, Last Meals has had actors such as Jimmy O. Yang and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Mythical Kitchens falls under Mythical Entertainment, a production company owned by the YouTube comedy duo Rhett & Link. Other channels of theirs memorably played host to Shinoda and bandmate Chester Bennington in 2017, when Linkin Park was collaborating with various YouTube outlets to promote their seventh album One More Light.
Source: Rhett & Link on Twitter
Original Image credit: anendfor on Instagram
I feel pretty safe doing this post a couple of hours before 2024 ends, there shouldn't be any more shows this year ... but then again, this has been the year of surprises from Linkin Park.
While this year brought much to discuss beyond the band's touring and live performances, this post will center exclusively on the shows played by Linkin Park. For clarity, this post will only be about the band's shows and appearances, and will not include Mike Shinodas "Already Over Sessions" performances.
September 5th: Los Angeles
September 5th. Surely that's a date that's forever burned into every Linkin Park fans brain by now. It's where we were introduced to Emily Armstrong as the new lead singer and Colin Brittain as the new drummer in the band. It was also where we found out that Rob Bourdon was no longer in the band and that Brad Delson wouldn't be performing live anymore, this role being filled by Alex Feder. We found out that the band was back in full force, making their return in a one hour performance, where at the end of the show they announced a six dates tour and a new album, From Zero, to be released on November 15th.
September 11th: Los Angeles - Tour Post
For their first full headlining set since 2017, Linkin Park and their fans in Los Angeles showed that they really know how to rock out and have a good show. They extended on the setlist from the September 5th show, bringing out more classics, Points of Authority, New Divide, Burn it Down, Castle of Glass, Lost In the Echo, Given Up, Breaking the Habit and Leave Out All the Rest all returned to the stage. On Points of Authority and Leave Out All the Rest, Mike now took the lead vocals in the verses and Castle of Glass returned back to it's original form for the first time since 2013, having been played mostly as a remix of the Recharged version since 2014.
As for what the band brought out that was new... well where do we start? For the first time since March 10, 2008, the band played My December. With Colin on guitar, Phoenix on bass, Mike on piano, Joe doing some light scratching and Emily on lead vocals. Colin also played guitar on another newcomer to the set, a mashup of When They Come for Me and Remember the Name. The song was performed by Mike and Colin solo, with Colin switching between guitar and drums mid-song.
There were also some debuts of new live songs at this show with the band bringing out two more, released earlier in 2024, Friendly Fire was played for the first time, just months after we first heard it in February of 2024. As for the other live debut, in order to bring some #JusticeForTheHuntingParty the band brought out the opening track to their 2014 album, Keys to the Kingdom, playing it in full band form for the first time ever.
A few days after their show in LA, the band headed over to New York for a performance and an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
The show didn't offer anything new in the setlist way, other than switching out Lost in the Echo with A Place for My Head, introducing a rotating spot in the setlist. While Mike was talking to the crowd before Bleed It Out, someone in the crowd threw a mustard packet on stage to Phoenix. So while Mike was giving his speech, Phoenix handed Mike the mustard packet and Mike, being the founder of #TeamKetchup, did not take this lightly, throwing the mustard back into the crowd before starting the song.
September 17th: The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon - News Post
The day after their New York show, Mike was interviewed by Jimmy talking about how the bands return happened and and why the album is named From Zero. After the interview the band performed the TV debut of The Emptiness Machine.
September 22nd: Hamburg, Germany - Tour Post
The last time the band performed in Hamburg was back when they were on their controversial 2014 European Tour. That tour was controversial because it was limited to just six countries, Austria, Germany, England, France, Netherlands and Switzerland, with Germany getting 9 shows(!!!) in total.
At this show we got the live premiere of the bands new single Heavy Is the Crown. The song serves as the official anthem for the "League of Legends 2024 Season World Championship" and the band debuted the song live two days before it officially premiered online. We later got an official recording of the new My December version the band introduced in Los Angeles from this show uploaded to the bands YouTube.
September 24th: London, UK - Tour Post
The band had really fun at this show, joking around, catching drum sticks, playing with instruments, this proved to be a really good show for the band. With Heavy Is the Crown being added as the second to last song of the set, Keys to the Kingdom was moved to the rotating spot with A Place for My Head and Lost in the Echo, now competing with the other two songs for attention. Even though the song had its debut in Hamburg, we got an official recording of Heavy Is the Crown from this show released on the bands YouTube.
Between the London and Seoul shows, on September 26th, the band announced three new tour dates to the ongoing tour, adding shows in the cites of Paris, Dallas and São Paulo. On September 30th the band had to add another date for São Paulo due to the show totally selling out minutes after the tickets were released. On November 9th it was announced that the November 15th show in São Paulo, taking place on the release day of From Zero, would be live-streamed by Multishow and Globoplay.
September 28th: Seoul, South Korea - Tour Post
The band made their return to South Korea for the first time since 2011, with a very very VERY loud crowd there to celebrate them being back. One member of the crowd was so happy that they jumped on stage with the band for the end of Bleed It Out... come on people, don't do this.
There exists a full recording of "The Emptiness Machine" from this show, but due to copyright reasons all uploads have been deleted from YouTube.
November 2nd: London, UK - News Post
On Ocotober 29th it was announced that Linkin Park would be part of the "League of Legends: Worlds 2024" opening ceremony, performing along with Ashnikko, Forts, and Tiffany Aris. Linkin Park was part of the ceremony because their song Heavy is the Crown was the main anthem for the event.
The Opening Ceremony started off the "League of Legends 2024 World Finals", streamed live from London’s O2 Arena. The event featured the two teams, T1 and BLG, going head-to-head to claim the title of World Champions. For the occasion, Linkin Park performed a slightly reworked version of "Heavy Is the Crown", with a longer intro and an extended instrumental bridge. The bridge was used to introduce the teams and highlight the trophy the winning team would take home. The League of Legends YouTube channel has an official video of the performance and Linkin Park later uploaded a dedicated behind the scenes video of the performance.
November 3rd; Paris, France - Tour Post
This was the biggest show on the tour up to this point, with the band going from arenas to stadiums, this show had over 40 thousand fans in attendance, and the band didn't use their 360 stage that that they had used for their other headlining shows up to this point. This show also saw the announcement of Over Each Other, the bands newest single, and a recording of the performance was included on the special Digital Expanded Edition of From Zero that the band only sold online for a limited time.
November 8th: Dallas, Texas - Tour Post
While all other headlining shows on the tour had sold out really quick, Dallas broke the trend and had tickets for sale up to the date of the show, we continue seeing this for most US dates in 2025. The people that showed up though were treated to one hell of a show. For the second time on the tour, the band debuted a new song from The Hunting Party. With Helmet being one of the opening acts of the show, Page Hamilton could join Linkin Park in performing All for Nothing for the first time. That wasn't the only surprise that the band had in store for the fans however, they pulled out non-single album track Casualty, making it the fourth song from the eleven track album they had played live.
This was the bands debut performance in Colombia, and the fans turned out and made sure they showed that the band was wanted there. The show was plagued by technical issues, for example, Emilyperformed a big part of Over Each Other without working monitors, there also seemed to be problems with her guitar during the song. The Emptiness Machine had so many issues that the band decided to replay the song after the fans chanted for it. After The Catalyst the band even had to step off stage for a few minutes in order for the crew to fix some technical issues. As for setlist changes there wasn't much new, Given Up was dropped for the first time on the tour with Casualty taking its place.
On November 12th, teasers, clues and hints with the text "COUNTING TO FROM ZERO" started appearing on stadiums and arenas all over the world. Two days later, on November 14th, we learned that these teasers was for the 2025 From Zero World Tour. Currently that tour sits at sixty-three dates, and will have shows all over the world, but probably most notably, a show at Wembley Stadium.
On November 15 the band celebrated the release of their new album "From Zero" with an amazing show with an amazing crowd in São Paulo, Brazil. For the first six songs, the band livestreamed it on their YouTube channel and they made sure to squeeze in the live premiere of Two Faced for the fans at home to see. Once the performance section of the stream was over, it was revealed that the show was being filmed for a theatrical release some time in 2025.
For the show on November 16th the band switched up their setlist slightly for the attending fans. They didn't play My December, rotating it with Friendly Fire, Points of Authority was played instead of Lying From You and in the A Place For My Head / LOST IN THE ECHO / Keys to the Kingdom slot the band played A Place for My Head.
The band had a lot of fun with the Brazilian fans leading up to the show. They did things like change their band icon with Brazilian colours, had a banner with "LINKIN" draped over the "Alliance" part of the Alliance Parque text on the stadium, so it read "LINKIN PARQUE" instead. But considering you then have fans who create pits on songs like CASTLE OF GLASS ... why wouldn't you?
On December 9th, it was officially announced that Linkin Park would make their return to Hellfest in 2025, headlining the festival on June 22nd. This will be their first appearance at Hellfest since the 2017 One More Light tour, during which they faced a notably bad reception from the audience, including having various objects thrown at them (and not in the good and fun way). Linkin Park will headline the festival along with Korn, Muse, and Scorpions.
December 12th: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Tour Post
- September 5th: From Zero reveal event
- November 15th: From Zero release show in São Paulo
- September 11th: Los Angeles, USA [ 1 ] [2 ] [3 ]
- September 16th: New York, USA [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
- September 22nd: Hamburg, Germany [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
- September 24th: London, UK [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
- September 28th: Seoul, South Korea [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
- November 3rd: Paris, France [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
- November 8th: Dallas, Texas [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
- November 11th: Bogota, Colombia [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
- November 15th: São Paulo, Brazil [ 1 ]
- November 16th: São Paulo, Brazil [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
- December 12th: Riydah, Saudi Arabia [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
Did you go to any shows this year? What was your favourite performance? Will you be attending any shows in 2025? Come and discuss in our forums.
A new LPTV episode has landed on YouTube, the 13th since the From Zero album cycle launched in early September. This one sees Linkin Park exploring ruins in Riyadh ahead of their headlining set at Soundstorm 2024. We are then shown footage of band members getting transported by helicopter to the festival venue in Banban to prepare for their performance, their final one for 2024.
Source: Linkin Park on YouTube
Complex Entertainment has posted a 47-minute interview with Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda on their YouTube channel. Mike sits down with Noah Callahan-Bever, host of Complex's Idea Generation segment, to run through a full restrospective of both his and Linkin Park's career. The two discuss Mike's career at length, including his early artistic influences in high school, the formation of Xero with Mark Wakefield, the marked shift of Minutes to Midnight, the passing of lead singer Chester Bennington, and of course the return of Linkin Park with From Zero.
You can watch the full video below!
Let us know your thoughts on this in-depth interview with Mike and come discuss in our forums!
Source: Complex on Youtube via @juancpin
A new episode of LPTV FROM ZERO has just been uploaded to the official Linkin Park YouTube channel. Continuing with the episodes of the band on the road, we get to see the band heading over to South America to play their first ever show in Colombia, and then head over to São Paulo for their two sold out shows. Taking hits of oxygen, receiving special merch gifts and more cool backstage footage is all part of the new episode. Watch it below.
What do you think of the episode? Come and discuss in our forums.
Source: Linkin Park YouTube
A video of Linkin Park performing "The Emptiness Machine" during their November 15 São Paulo show earlier this year has been posted to the band's YouTube channel. This is fresh off the footage being broadcast during the 2024 Billboard Music Awards, in lieu of Linkin Park performing at the event in person (since the band is abroad on tour). The video is the second official upload to come from the São Paulo performance, following"Two Faced", and features different angles and mixing compared what we saw when the show was livestreamed, including the expletive in the final chorus being censored.
Linkin Park actually walked away from the Billboard Music Awards with two awards out of their five nominations, winning Top Rock Duo/Group and Top Hard Rock Artist. During the program, the "Emptiness Machine" video was preceded by a prepared video of Linkin Park accepting the two awards:
The November 15 São Paulo show, which celebrated the release of Linkin Park's long-awaited eighth studio album From Zero, is due to be released in full as a concert film in 2025. Whether or not these new official video edits are excerpts from that film is unknown.
Source: Linkin Park on YouTube
It has been 14 years since Linkin Park last performed in the Middle East, but the band is finally making their return to the region. Linkin Park was announced last month as a headliner for Soundstorm 2024, one of the biggest music festivals in the world, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The band will be performing in under 24 hours tomorrow night at 21:00 local time (UTC+3) for their first-ever appearance in Saudi Arabia. Linkin Park will be the first of the featured headliners to perform, playing on the main stage—dubbed "Big Beast"—for day one of the festival, following Arabic pop legend Abdul Majeed Abdullah.
Linkin Park’s last appearances in the Middle East were during the A Thousand Suns era in 2010. The band performed at the Formula One Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, UAE, on November 13, 2010, followed by a show in Tel Aviv, Israel, two days later. An LPTV episode was dedicated to the two performances and the band's travel to the region. Mike Shinoda also made a two-date stop in Tel Aviv for his solo tour in 2019, but fans in the region have had to wait a long time for the full band’s return—Linkin Park has released four studio albums since their last time there! This is a real treat for fans in Saudi Arabia, with the band's first-ever visit to the kingdom also marking their long-awaited return to the Middle East.
Linkin Park is among the latest talent to be tapped for the Soundstorm festival, organized by Saudi Arabian promoter MDLBEAST, now in its fourth year. Soundstorm is the Middle East’s largest multi-genre music festival and has been drawing large crowds of hundreds of thousands year after year. Previous iterations of the festival have brought headliners such as Bruno Mars, Post Malone, and Calvin Harris to the stages in the Banban neighborhood of Riyadh.
This year's festival, running from December 12–14, features a lineup with several notable Western acts like Eminem, Muse, David Guetta, and of course, Linkin Park. Several past Linkin Park collaborators are also performing, such as Busta Rhymes, Steve Aoki, and Martin Garrix, with whom Mike collaborated on "Waiting for Tomorrow." These artists are interspersed alongside several very large names in Arabic and Middle Eastern popular music, such as Abdul Majeed Abdullah, Elissa, and Majid al-Muhandis.
Linkin Park's last performance was nearly a month ago in São Paulo, Brazil, on November 16th, wrapping up their run of globe-trotting arena and stadium performances. The November 16th performance was part of their two-day filmed performance at Allianz Parque (whose signage was draped over to say "Linkin Parque") for From Zero's global release. Footage recorded in São Paulo will be released as a concert film sometime in 2025. The band delivered two fiery shows to the electric Brazilian crowd, who mirrored the band's energy, with even mellower songs such as "Castle of Glass" sparking circle pits.
The band has kept their set relatively stable following the September 5th comeback, though they have thrown in several surprises throughout. This has included live debuts of both "Keys to the Kingdom" and "All for Nothing" from The Hunting Party, as well as surprise debut performances of "Heavy Is the Crown" and "Casualty" prior to the official releases. The live debut of "Casualty" in Arlington, Texas, saw Mike Shinoda drumming up the crowd, calling on all the old-school fans to return to the pit for the new song's bridge.
The latest single from From Zero, "Two Faced," made its debut early in the set on the first night in São Paulo, just two days after its release as a single. The song garnered great crowd reaction, channeling Linkin Park's early work, captured here by drone footage uploaded to the band's YouTube channel:
Given the festival format of Soundstorm, the band will certainly be making some large changes due to time constraints. Linkin Park is scheduled for a 75-minute set, much shorter than the two-hour performances seen during their arena shows and closer to the roughly hour-long performance on September 5th. Historically, festival performances have often resulted in some mellower songs dropped from the set: "One More Light" was left out for many festivals in 2017 and "Final Masquerade" saw frequent cuts for festivals in 2015. Some of the deeper cuts, such as the acoustic rendition of "My December" that has seen much love from fans, seem like possible cuts to fit Linkin Park's timeslot.
It seems likely the band will keep many of their staple hit songs, as well as some combination of the From Zero songs they have debuted so far. Their last performance on November 16th included the four From Zero singles—"The Emptiness Machine," "Heavy Is the Crown," "Over Each Other," and "Two Faced"—and the aggressive thrash-toned "Casualty," which replaced "Given Up" for the last three shows. As "Casualty" seems primed to be a mosh pit staple, we hope that it will be kept for the Soundstorm performance!
This is Linkin Park's last performance for 2024, barring any more surprise announcements. Fans won't have to wait long though, as a short three-show run in Mexico is scheduled to start at the end of January, kicking off the band's massive 2025 world tour.
Let us know your thoughts on Linkin Park’s return to the Middle East! Stay tuned for updates and come discuss in our forums.
01. Somewhere I Belong
02. Crawling
03. New Divide
04. The Emptiness Machine
05. Burn It Down
06. Waiting for the End
07. Two Faced
08. Given Up
09. One Step Closer
10. Lost
11. What I've Done
12. Over Each Other
13. Numb
15. In the End
16. Faint
17. Papercut
18. Heavy Is the Crown
19. Bleed It Out
The Hellfest line-up for 2025 has just been officially announced, and Linkin Park has been revealed as one of over 100 acts performing across the 4-day event happening in Clisson, France. One of the biggest yearly metal festivals in all of Europe, Hellfest 2025 will be running from Thursday, June 19 through to Sunday, June 22, and playing host to big names such as Muse, Korn, Falling In Reverse and Electric Callboy. Linkin Park will be the headliner on Mainstage 01 for the final day, preceded by a series of acts including Cypress Hill and Refused.
Linkin Park has headlined Hellfest once before, shortly after the release of 2017 album One More Light. The band was infamously met with a less-than-welcoming response from the crowd, but that has evidently not deterred them from returning. This June 22 date will be part of a June/July 2025 tour leg that includes a few other European summer festivals; the band is scheduled to headline events such as I-Days in Italy and Rock Werchter in Belgium during that period.
Information on getting tickets to Hellfest 2025 can be found on the event's official website.
Source: Linkin Park on Twitter
Linkin Park has just uploaded a live recording of My December that was filmed on September 22nd at the bands show in Hamburg, Germany, to their official YouTube channel. This version of the song has stripped away the drums and electric guitar, featuring piano, bass, acoustic guitar, vocals and a little bit of scratching. You can check out the recording of the song below.
Source: Linkin Park YouTube via @Qwerty19