hahninator Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Linkin Park just wrapped up their ten show tour of Europe, which is the last tour for The Hunting Party before they go back into the studio. We'll recap the tour for you and also give Fort Minor some love in a second recap, coming in a few days. This is the first time that Linkin Park has played the August festival circuit run in Europe since 2003, when they did it for Meteora. A twelve show tour that June was canceled due to an injury to Chester, but with shows already planned at Reading and Leeds in August, the band was able to return and make up six of the canceled shows. Since two of the shows were opening for Metallica in Spain, LP headlined a show in Spain in August and played Terremoto in Weeze, Germany since Rock am Ring and Rock im Park were canceled that year. Sadly, the Norway, Sweden and Netherlands shows weren't made up but the band eventually returned to those countries on the world tours for Minutes To Midnight and A Thousand Suns. Since then, LP has typically stuck to the June/July festival circuit in Europe, which arguably has the biggest cluster of festivals for rock bands at one time, but August does offer a few great ones, which we'll get into next. This tour kicked off at Pukkelpop in Belgium, which was the first LP show in that country since Rock Werchter in 2011. It was the first appearance of Linkin Park at Pukkelpop, and the band DOMINATED the "want" list for the festival for months....the tickets for the day LP played sold out almost instantly. Talk about huge demand. Seriously, Belgium REALLY wanted the band. Anyway, Fort Minor's first show ever was also at Pukkelpop in 2005 so it was fitting that this tour also kicked off there. It was the first time Limp Bizkit opened for LP since Rock in Rio 2012 in Lisboa, too. For the setlist, we saw the same thing that had been played this summer, but with Rebellion back in the #3 spot. Rob and Brad injured themselves on Guilty All The Same so we knew that song wouldn't return, but it's good that another song from The Hunting Party was able to be added to the setlist since Rebellion was also banned in China in July. This was the first time in 2015 that Rebellion and Points Of Authority appeared in the same setlist, after rotating in-and-out BEFORE China in June, when shows in Mexico and the U.S. occurred. Mike even played a bit of Let It Go at the end of the LOATR/SOTD/Iridescent medley at this show, ha. Austria (home of FM4 Frequency, show #2 on this tour) has been a staple of LP's tours since the beginning, just barely missing out of a show on the Meteora World Tour when Aerodrome 04 didn't work out. There wasn't ever really a big European Tour for Meteora...the band's schedule was completely exhausting with all of the U.S. touring going on as well as the short European visits (plus with hopping across the rest of the world), so they never had time for a full-on arena tour across Europe. If they did, Austria would have definitely gotten a show. However, they've received shows on every world tour since, including back-to-back Novarock shows in 2011 and 2012. It wouldn't be a Linkin Park European Tour unless Germany received more shows than anyone else, so the band kicked that off with a show in Hockenheim at Rock'n'Heim. This festival is newer....starting in 2013 and with MLK promising a third three-day-festival in 2015, fans were excited but it unfortunately turned out to only be one day. Linkin Park drew 14,000+, which is good, but definitely not as much as MLK or the band wanted in Germany. The Berlin show more than made up for that, probably. Still, that's a sellout if it was in an arena with the same lineup so no one likely complained at the end of the day. A big return to Poland came next! The 2014 show in Wroclaw was one of the largest headlining shows the band has played....what a huge crowd! It's no surprise they decided to come back this year and Rybnik was selected as the lucky city to host the show. Another big turnout came to Rybnik...which probably gets Poland more shows in the future (that's a good thing). Next up, Belarus got their first Linkin Park show ever. We held a great LPLive Meetup the night before the show in Minsk with a cover band featuring the lead singer of the band that was chosen to open for Linkin Park the next night. Several members of the crew like Ted (Phoenix's bass tech) and Benjamin (Brad's guitar tech) stopped by to hang out as well. The show in Minsk ALMOST sold out...a large turnout for the first Linkin Park show there ever and it also wouldn't surprise us if the band returned on a future tour. Russia has hosted the band on every world tour since they made their debut there on the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle, and Moscow didn't disappoint on this one. The flashmobs were great and the crowd was massive once again! Next, Jämsä, Finland hosted an outdoor show - the first show in Finland since Projekt Revolution in Helsinki in 2011. The band took things back to Germany by headlining Stadion An der Alten Försterei in Berlin on September 3rd to over 30,000 fans. Joe had to fly home due to a family emergency before this show, and we now know that everything is ok at home and he's good to go for future shows. This was the first time that Joe was ever forced to miss a Linkin Park show. His tech, Warren, stepped in and nailed it....even playing parts of songs that Joe skips sometimes. The second show in a row for Germany and last German show of 2015 was Düsseldorf, which also hosted Projekt Revolution 2008 at the same venue. Funny enough, the 2008 tour also went from Berlin to Düsseldorf. This show was billed as Rock im Sektor, a "new festival" for MLK. With another massive crowd, the tour went to Italy to close it out in style. Roma is a city Linkin Park has never played before, so the Rock in Roma show was a special one. Over 500 LPU members used the early entry at this show and were chanting for the band five hours before the show even began. Chester during the encore gave a speech about a fallen fan named Alessandro before the band did something they've never done before at a headlining show....they played a fan request. Fans up front started chanting for A Place For My Head, causing the band to decide to play the song (even changing instruments for it on the spot) just for them. Not bad! This was one of the shortest tours in Europe for Linkin Park, but they once again played huge shows across the continent. The summer tours in Europe are only getting between 9 and 12 shows at this point in the band's career (2012 to now)...the last one with more was for A Thousand Suns in June/July 2011. It would be nice if they extended it back out to 15 in the future, but that's doubtful since LP really doesn't do HUGE tours anymore. Carnivores, though, was an exception since it was quite bigger than Honda Civic Tour in 2012. Still though, we are referring to just six shows in Asia in 2013, nine in Europe last summer, ten now, etc. A notable exclusion on this tour was definitely the United Kingdom, where the band played four shows in 2014, but none this year. We don't know the logistics of it all, but it's interesting that England isn't getting nearly as many shows anymore compared to the 2007-2011 period. A show in Serbia almost came to fruition to close the tour, but didn't work out. Look for the band to play their first show there in the future as that's the second legit attempt at getting LP there (after May 2013). Next, we thought Spain would get a show as Live Nation Spain has been very vocal about The Hunting Party and the LP fanbase there, but the country went without a single LP performance on any of the three European tours for The Hunting Party. Finally, we were shocked to see no shows listed in France or Czech Republic...stadium show rumors for France were being discussed years ago and Brno in Czech Republic has hosted several great Linkin Park shows. Don't worry, LP will play all of these places on upcoming tours. Truthfully, there are just too many countries in the world for EVERY country to be played on EVERY album's touring cycle. The band can't logically tour for four years for each album. Anyway, that's it for Europe! The band ends the world tour here, playing just one show in Tempe later this year, as they write their followup to The Hunting Party. Another club show or two is rumored to happen around that show, which is near the 15th anniversary of Hybrid Theory. A live release is also rumored for later this year...stay tuned to see if that ends up happening. So what did you guys think of the tour? Did you see multiple shows? One thing Rob mentioned at a M&G this tour was that he can see how hardcore fans lose the incentive to see multiple shows on the tour...because the band isn't rotating setlists anymore. The Hunting Party's touring has really brought huge production and a "show" aspect instead of just 18-20 actual songs in a setlist. Maybe that changes for the next world tour as the band will introduce even more songs to the set. One thing we'd like to see again is rotating songs/sets, for sure. Another tour in the books! Linkin Park will undoubtedly return to Europe next year in case you didn't see them on this run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamArtz Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Well written. The thought of LP releasing a new studio album in 2016 just gets me hyped all the damn time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkInThePark Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Saw them twice! Cologne and Berlin (2015). But after they played like 14 shows in Germany over 2 years, i have the feeling they take a break from coming to Germany But what will you do, if the fanbase is that big, that you can/must play so much shows here in Germany!? Still looking forward what LP7 will sound like and with which band they will go on tour next, someone really big would be interesting! I mean the LP and Of M&M tour was cool, but imagine a LP tour with Muse would be mindblowing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HybridT Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 Well written. The thought of LP releasing a new studio album in 2016 just gets me hyped all the damn time. You're not the only one! But at the same time I'm a bit disappointed because they said that it's not going to be like The Hunting Party, so... another LT or ATS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iPodwithnomusic Posted September 11, 2015 Share Posted September 11, 2015 (edited) You're not the only one! But at the same time I'm a bit disappointed because they said that it's not going to be like The Hunting Party, so... another LT or ATS? They said it would be something new, so nothing has shown it will be closer to ATS than THP Edited September 11, 2015 by iPodwithnomusic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nataku Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Had a chance to go to 3 shows (Rybnik, Jamsa, Berlin) + 1 Fort Minor (in Berlin). Right now I am very excited about the new album and of course possibly the next tour! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marzo23 Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 Great summary I really hope that the next Euro tour will be a bigger one like the 2008 summer tour again and than there are less complaining about so much German shows I think that the album will be released again in May/June/July but than they will not do an Euro tour at first...maybe a US summer tour. I cannot imagine that LP will play again RAR/RIP, Download, Pinkpop, NovaRock again next June. They need a pause of those festivals and also the festivals need a pause of LP After playing RIP/RAR two times in three years it is better to come back again in 2017 or 2018 again there and same with Download.so maybe it looks like this for next year:May/June/July´16 - Album releaseJuly/August/September´16 - North America tour October/November´16 - European tour February´17 - Australian tour with Soundwave festivals and an (real!) Asian tour and another European Summer tour in June 2017 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tirea Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 ^yes, I don't want European Tour before album release like it was done on LT & THP touring cycle. Real tour in Europe, like those from MTM/ATS era would be epic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamArtz Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 You're not the only one! But at the same time I'm a bit disappointed because they said that it's not going to be like The Hunting Party, so... another LT or ATS? Oh please, not another LT. Anything but another LT. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLAME-XIII Posted September 12, 2015 Share Posted September 12, 2015 it was good to see the band 2 times during this tour, i think that Chester should be given more time to rest his voice, i mean his vocal was much better in 2014, it's like in previous tour, his voice was amazing in 2011, but terrible in 2012... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HybridT Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Great summary I really hope that the next Euro tour will be a bigger one like the 2008 summer tour again and than there are less complaining about so much German shows I think that the album will be released again in May/June/July but than they will not do an Euro tour at first...maybe a US summer tour. I cannot imagine that LP will play again RAR/RIP, Download, Pinkpop, NovaRock again next June. They need a pause of those festivals and also the festivals need a pause of LP After playing RIP/RAR two times in three years it is better to come back again in 2017 or 2018 again there and same with Download. so maybe it looks like this for next year: May/June/July´16 - Album release July/August/September´16 - North America tour October/November´16 - European tour February´17 - Australian tour with Soundwave festivals and an (real!) Asian tour and another European Summer tour in June 2017 So... South America doesn't exist? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LinkInThePark Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 South Afrika would be nice too! I mean, they played two big stadium shows there and i think its time to come back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hahninator Posted September 14, 2015 Author Share Posted September 14, 2015 Maybe they should start the cycle somewhere else besides Europe. Do the first album promo tour in Asia for a change. Or Australia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marzo23 Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 So... South America doesn't exist? yes! Dumb question, dumb answer.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueSoul Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 Dumb question, dumb answer.... He's referring to the fact that you didn't include South America in your proposed schedule Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JZLP-NaughtyNottingham Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 Lol like if marzo was part of LP management Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marzo23 Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 There was never a real South America tour! Only two Brasil shows last year, 5 shows in 2012, 3 shows in 2010 and one show in 2004 there. They only need one week off for that part of the world if they don't do a real tour through the whole continent, but for the other tours I wrote down they did real tours with at least 8-10 shows or much bigger. so what?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HybridT Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 (edited) There was never a real South America tour! Only two Brasil shows last year, 5 shows in 2012, 3 shows in 2010 and one show in 2004 there. They only need one week off for that part of the world if they don't do a real tour through the whole continent, but for the other tours I wrote down they did real tours with at least 8-10 shows or much bigger. so what?! IKR. I was joking... but I'd like Linkin Park to come here. Edited September 15, 2015 by Hybrid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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