Linkin Park performing in Saudi Arabia for the first time at Soundstorm Festival 2024

[RogueSoul]

Today truly gave Linkin Park fans a shock with the announcement of the 2025 From Zero World Tour, and they slipped perhaps an even more surprising show announcement under the radar - they will be performing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the new Soundstorm Festival, alongside other headliners Eminem, Muse, and Tyler, The Creator!

 

 

The band will play on the first night of the festival - Thursday, December 12, 2024 (this year)! The festival features a lot of electronic acts and DJs with rock artists mixed in - friends of the Linkin Park family including Thirty Seconds To Mars and Steve Aoki will be on the bill with them on the other days, so seeing a collaboration onstage isn't too far-fetched either! Perhaps Jared Leto will come out and perform a single with them ('In The End' would be fun, and Thirty Seconds To Mars have covered part of 'Crawling' before), and we all know that Steve Aoki could mean the potential revival of 'A Light That Never Comes' or even 'Darker Than Blood' - or both! After the band debuted 'All For Nothing' with Page Hamilton in Arlington, Texas earlier this month, we now know that we should always be expecting the unexpected on this world tour. And of course, the band will be headlining on the same day as Eminem, who will presumably be playing at the same time. But will a long-awaited collaboration between the two artists finally be possible?

 

Linkin Park has not performed in the Middle East since 2010's A Thousand Suns Tour, where they played shows in Israel (which featured the famous mashup of 'The Messenger' and Bob Marley's 'No Woman, No Cry') and the United Arab Emirates. Mike Shinoda also visited Israel with two shows in Tel Aviv on his Post Traumatic Tour in 2019. This'll definitely be a very interesting and telling show for the band - how will they be received here? It should be noted that Saudi Arabia's clothing policies have been relaxed in recent years as they try to expand their tourism industry with sports and entertainment - WWE hosts a myriad of events in the city, including women's events, where they can compete while wearing long sleeves and covering up their legs. There are still some rules to follow, but the country has become much more lax on this side of things in recent years, and Emily's normal attire should be more than admissible. So for everyone worried for Emily's well-being - don't worry!

 

 

This is slated to be Linkin Park's final show of 2024 (as of right now). From Zero is out TODAY, November 15! Linkin Park performs two shows in Brazil in celebration of the album release - stick with us for coverage of those shows and this one on our social media (Twitter/X, Instagram, and Facebook), and sign up on the forums!

[vinifeijo]

Don't know about it, it's a little bit uncomfortable. Just as the Qatar World Cup.

[Mudit]

Was surprised when I saw that 

[NimaLP]

Yeah, shitty government. As a middle eastern myself, I'm too familiar with that. It sucks more than you'd know. But I'm so happy for the LP fans in the area to get the opportunity to see them for the very first time.

[Chesterisinmyblood90]

Pretty epic for the band to play somewhere like this, just hope they are safe. They definitely need to do India and Australia/New Zealand at some point, I always see posts from fans from both places.

Edited 22 hours ago by Chesterisinmyblood90

[zerothree]

2 hours ago, Chesterisinmyblood90 said:

Pretty epic for the band to play somewhere like this, just hope they are safe. They definitely need to do India and Australia/New Zealand at some point, I always see posts from fans from both places.

 

Hello from New Zealand! It's been since 2013, prior to that it was 2007.

Edited 19 hours ago by zerothree
Error

[javignacio]

7 hours ago, NimaLP said:

Yeah, shitty government. As a middle eastern myself, I'm too familiar with that. It sucks more than you'd know. But I'm so happy for the LP fans in the area to get the opportunity to see them for the very first time.

that's the thing. the show's for the fans, they have bad luck being from those places, but LP is for the fans

[NimaLP]

1 hour ago, javignacio said:

that's the thing. the show's for the fans, they have bad luck being from those places, but LP is for the fans

 

Exactly. I'd love to go to that show. Geographically, it's the closest they get to where I live (Iran), but the traveling costs here are insane, let alone the tickets and hotels. Third world sucks lol.

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

It's forbidden to play One More Light songs in Saudi Arabia.

[RentEznor]

10 hours ago, NimaLP said:

shitty government

 

Just government? Religion plays a massive part of it too and generally the idea of (straight) men being the centre of society, not just there but in many places. Wouldn't be an hypocrite myself saying they shouldn't play shows where human rights are being violated, because they would cancel half of the shows next year.

 

But anyway, stay safe and have fun.

[Sabi]

2 hours ago, JZLP-Benningstrong said:

It's forbidden to play One More Light songs in Saudi Arabia.

why? source?

[NimaLP]

14 hours ago, RentEznor said:

 

Just government? Religion plays a massive part of it too and generally the idea of (straight) men being the centre of society, not just there but in many places. Wouldn't be an hypocrite myself saying they shouldn't play shows where human rights are being violated, because they would cancel half of the shows next year.

 

But anyway, stay safe and have fun.

I fully understand what you're saying since I'm living in the middle east and seeing all the terrible shit with my own eyes. The issues here are way too deep and fucked up that we could talk about them for weeks and it still wouldn't be enough. Human rights mean nothing to those murderers at the top. Hopefully this post here won't be used against me at the court if I get arrested for political reasons! (don't worry i'm joking... but am i?)