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China Tour Recap


hahninator

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China is already over so we'll recap the short run for you in this thread....

 

Going way back to the beginning, the China Tour was originally rumored in December 2014 and finally was confirmed and announced in May, only two months before the tour.

 

This was Linkin Park's first visit to China since 2009. They made history in 2007 by being the first large international rock band to play China, and really opened the door for rock music to play the country. Metallica and Muse followed, all the way to present day. The show was such a big success that LP was invited back in 2008 for three stadium shows but had to cancel due to an injury to Chester. A return to Shanghai was penciled in for 2009 and that show was another big success.

 

Sadly, the band was banned from China in 2011 and three planned stadium shows that September were axed, but they finally made their triumphant return this month. This was the largest international band stadium tour to ever play China. The band walked away with a reported $13 million from just these five shows alone. Anyway, on to the shows themselves....

 

In order, the shows were held in Nanjing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Beijing.

 

In Nanjing, we saw that China works a little differently for shows. There is no standing general admission part of the crowd, only seats, and the seated part of the floor holds a lot less than you'd think. Still, the stadiums were absolutely massive and were some of the biggest headlining crowds that Linkin Park had ever played to in their career. Next, we saw that social media was banned in the country, but that didn't stop @Linkin_Soul from providing us setup pictures of the shows to live updates during the shows to post-show photos. Not bad!

 

And we all noticed the new production. The band outfitted the stage with huge video screens, adding their best production they've ever had as a band. We'll admit that we're pretty jealous of those screens and lights, especially after the North American festivals recently. Linkin Park's crew did a great job transforming the band's normal show into a huge production fit for stadiums.

 

As far as the setlists went, it was no surprise that LP played the same set at all five shows. The setlist they chose was the one they debuted in Mexico in June, with Fort Minor's Welcome in it and with Points Of Authority surprisingly replacing Rebellion. However, Crawling, which opened the encore in Mexico, was dropped from the Nanjing set and wasn't played at all in China. Sadly, LP decided to not replace it with anything else (A Place For My Head, Rebellion, etc). And to top it off, the government made the band censor all of the songs....which is a first for Linkin Park.

 

Another first for the tour is that the LPU didn't hold their Meet & Greets for the first actual tour ever, which seemed odd. Something was up with Mercedes Benz, though,, because they had Meet & Greets with fans before the shows. Lorenzo made up for this by holding two LPU Meetup events in Shenzhen and Chongqing, where some LPU'ers were selected to meet up with each other and were "surprised" with Linkin Park showing up to shake hands and to take a group picture. To top it off, Joe DJ'ed in Shanghai and Beijing, but apparently only super rich fans could attend those. Anyway, it was a different atmosphere for the LPU in China and it's unlikely that anywhere else in the world will have any issues with M&Gs.

 

Next, there are recordings from four of the five shows, which is very surprising to us. We'll admit...some of us thought we'd have a very hard time even finding out what was played in China because of the social media ban, but China ended up being one of the best tours ever for information coming in from the shows. There are fan recordings from Shenzhen, Shanghai (video coming soon), and and Chongqing (torrent coming soon) and of course, the webcast from Beijing. Check it all out if you want to see some huge production.

 

 

By making such a big impact on the Chinese music scene and amongst the Chinese fans, it wouldn't surprise us at all if Linkin Park returned in 2016 or 2017, especially since it is a rare place in the world where LP can play stadiums by themselves. We saw München in 2008, Poland in 2014, and upcoming shows in Poland and Berlin this tour be booked at stadiums (probably missing a few), but it is pretty rare for a non-festival show to be at a stadium for Linkin Park.

 

That's all of the positives from the tour... the only negative would probably be that the rumored Keys To The Kingdom (on the list of songs to get approved by the Chinese government) didn't get debuted live. Don't Stay did EXTREMELY well in a fan vote for the tour, for songs the Chinese wanted to see performed live. Maybe the band noticed it, maybe they didn't....only future tours will tell. The song hasn't been played live since August 2008 on Projekt Revolution.

 

Linkin Park's next tour, their FINAL for The Hunting Party, starts in about three weeks in Europe. It's a mix of festivals and headlining shows, as usual, and LP will visit Belarus, a place they haven't been to before. Ten shows are lined up, with an additional two Fort Minor shows in the mix as well. Stay tuned for the full coverage of that tour. And as always, check the 2015 page for all of the setlists, show notes and more from the shows this year.

 

Very last, but not least....some of the crew had a small incident on the way back on their plane, which had huge turbulence and sustained some pretty serious damage. It turned around about 45 minutes into the flight from Beijing to the USA, and everyone is ok. You can see a picture here. Thanks to the crew for all that they do to make these shows happen worldwide, and please be safe in your travels.

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I think LP will mix that China setlist a little bit and add some of THP songs which were already played.

It could be a festival setlist ~90minutes and the full setlist ~100minutes.

 

But 2008 in München they did not play in a stadium. It was horse racecourse ^^

Düsseldorf 2008 is the same stadium which they will play this year.

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They really need to play Rebellion in Europe, those fans love that song. Surely they'll change something. A Place For My Head would be great, too.

 

But 2008 in München they did not play in a stadium. It was horse racecourse ^^

Düsseldorf 2008 is the same stadium which they will play this year.

 

Ah, I must have misunderstood, I thought like it was an Olympic stadium for the racing or something.

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They really need to play Rebellion in Europe, those fans love that song. Surely they'll change something. A Place For My Head would be great, too.

Rebellion and A Place For My Head in Rome would be perfect

Edited by stich
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Ah, I must have misunderstood, I thought like it was an Olympic stadium for the racing or something.

 

It is a stadium (it's also in the name), but more in the classical sense, not a football/soccer stadium. Stadium has a very broad definition, it can be anything from a flat field to a massive complex, as long as there's sports happening. We kind of had this discussion before somewhere with Stadium vs. Arena.

 

By the way the Munich venue from 2008 was banned from holding concerts since 2012 because the location is not secure enough.

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  • 2 months later...

Another proshot source from China tour?

Any details of when and where it's avaiable?

I was there and saw the dji's people record the whole show.(That are dji's cameras.)You can see guys with very big cameras tied on their shoulders through out the show in the audience recordings.

Ans sometimes the screen will show imagines from the air.

Also check out that link.

Edited by Vorist
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