2018.11.17 - Silver Spring, Maryland

[GlassCastles]

Well, this is it guys. Mike closes out the Outbreak Tour tonight in Silver Spring, Maryland, and we could be in for a wild ride!

 

Last night's show in Detroit, Michigan was truly a special one. From the incredibly rare 'Remember The Name' opener to the still surprising new closer in 'A Place For My Head' featuring tour opener Don Broco, Mike is not letting this tour go quietly into the night! He also made sure to incorporate rarities like 'Until It Breaks' and 'It's Goin' Down' into the set, gave 'Roads Untraveled' a short piano intro for the first time, and he even gave his usual 'In The End' speech to 'Heavy', where he talked about the initial reception the song got as a single, comparing it to the reactions the band got when they released other singles like 'In The End', 'Leave Out All The Rest', and 'Guilty All The Same' (which even Mike commented made absolutely no sense to him). It was truly a great addition to an incredibly unpredictable tour.

 

Check out Mike opening the show with a run of 'Remember The Name' (which has only opened one other show on the tour so far) and 'When They Come For Me'

Since Mike has never actually played a show in Silver Spring before (nice to see him visiting new places on this tour), let's talk for a minute about his history in Maryland. Linkin Park has a brief, but fun, history in the state. The band first played in Maryland in 2000 on Kottonmouth Kings's Ridin' High Tour and later hit Baltimore that same year. Unfortunately, we don't have the sets for either of these shows, so if you have any info, feel free to let us know! The Meteora era saw the band's return to the state on Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour, which featured fan favorite tracks like 'Figure.09' and 'P5hng Me A*wy' (which we would love to see make its return at some point!) and the always welcome '1stp Klosr' bridge on 'One Step Closer'. Linkin Park's last stop in Maryland was on the Minutes To Midnight North American Tour in 2008, which had an insane 'No More Sorrow' opener, a relatively rare 'Valentine's Day' (another song we wouldn't mind see making its comeback), and a beautiful first encore of the piano version of 'My December' and 'What I've Done' with its "AMBO Intro".

 

Watch Linkin Park take Baltimore by storm with the incredibly epic 'No More Sorrow' intro in 2008. It's a shame this song got dropped after the A Thousand Suns tour and never returned to the set.

You'd think that coming up on the 25th show of the tour, we'd know what to expect, but we still can't seem to predict what Mike is gonna do! After the tour debuts of 'Invisible' and 'High Road' (which has still only been played once all tour) in Denver, the one-off performance of 'Place To Start' (which hadn't been played since Chengdu back in August) in San Francisco, and the complete surprise of 'A Place For My Head' with Don Broco in Boston all coming on the last few shows of the tour, Mike shows no sign of slowing down despite the tour coming to a close. That's not even considering the rare songs in rotation like 'Watching As I Fall' (only played 3 times this tour), 'Cigarettes', and 'Kenji'. We could really see anything tonight, especially given the trend of the final headlining show of a tour having quite a few surprises! Singapore at the end of the Asia leg of the tour had the debuts of 'High Road' and 'Hold It Together' and his show in Vienna had what our team has dubbed the "Vienna Four", which consists of 'In Stereo' (the first time it had been played since the Fort Minor comeback tour in 2015), the 2015 remix of 'Cigarettes' (which had been played once before on the tour in an acapella form, but not in full since 2015), 'Until It Breaks' (which had only been done once on Mike's solo tour), and 'It's Goin' Down' (which had only been done over the intro to 'Kenji' prior on Mike's solo tour). If he keeps up the trend, this show could be absolutely insane!

 

There's still two songs Mike has expressed interest in doing that he hasn't played yet: 'Can't Hear You Now' and 'Waiting For Tomorrow'. Could we see either of those tonight? There's also several Post Traumatic songs that Mike hasn't brought to the stage in full yet, the most interesting of which is 'Lift Off' which has been soundchecked on the tour with lyrics from older songs mashed up with it. Mike could bring this out tonight as well! That's not to mention songs on the playlist Mike posted back before the tour started, which had a few songs that Mike has yet to play like 'Burning In The Skies' and 'Believe Me' (the latter of which we thought for sure would have been played by now). Anything is on the table for tonight!

 

Who's going to the show? After this, Mike is taking a bit of a break before heading back out for some holiday radio shows in New York (where both Hahninator (Mark) and Rogue Soul (Dylan) will get to see Mike again) and in California.

 

We'll keep you updated on everything that happens at this show and on the rest of the tour, so be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates, and feel free to join the LPL Discord Server, where you can talk to fans from all around the world. There's also the recently launched LPLive Archive YouTube Channel where we upload all kinds of rare content from the Linkin Park world.

Check out the rest of Mike Shinoda's touring schedule here.