2025.05.10 - Sonic Temple Art & Music Festival

[RogueSoul]

It's that time of the year once again, and it's been quite awhile since we've been on this ride with Linkin Park... it's festival season! After wrapping up the arena headlining shows of the first U.S. leg, the band are wrapping things up with two festivals in the United States, the first being the esteemed Sonic Temple Art & Music festival in Columbus, Ohio on May 10, 2025!

 

 

The early 2000's are truly back with this lineup, with Linkin Park headlining day three of four of the festival. Metallica headlines Friday and Sunday with two unique sets featuring no repeated songs (wouldn't that be nice...) while Korn closed the festival's first night on Thursday. Joining Linkin Park on the main stage (the Cathedral Stage) Saturday will be the likes of I Prevail, Trivium, Hoobastank, Citizen Soldier, and Sick Puppies, while acts on other stages include grandson, Of Mice & Men, Jimmy Eat World, Bullet For My Valentine, TRUSTcompany, Underoath... if you listened to rock and metal music in the 2000's, this is literally your lineup. Linkin Park headlines the night, scheduled to take the stage at 9:20pm for a 90-minute set ending at 10:50. As a majority of the shows this cycle have gone for around 2 hours a pop, this set seems pretty short by comparison, but the band is sure to bring the classics as well as some new and surprise jams along the way! You can check out the full schedule for the day here.

 

It's been almost 10 years since the last time Linkin Park performed in Columbus, Ohio, the last being at the end of The Hunting Party cycle with another festival appearance, headlining Rock On The Range... which is essentially the same festival as this one, with a new venue and new name. The band played on May 17, 2015 - in a week, it'll have been 10 years exactly since the band last visited the state! This immense set opened with a huge combo of 'Papercut' and 'Rebellion,' soon launching into a rare performance of 'A Line In The Sand' to round out the beginning of the set. The full version of the band's summer setlist debuted at this show, bringing in songs like 'From The Inside' and 'Breaking The Habit' back into the mix, while also featuring the live debut of 'Darker Than Blood,' a stripped version of which served as an intro to 'Burn It Down.' 'Rebellion' was also an addition, returning for the first time since 2014. Funny enough, this'll be the band's second show in the city with a different guitarist than Brad Delson - he was sick and couldn't travel in 2015, so his tech Benjamin Chandler filled in for him. This Sonic Temple show will be the band's tenth overall show in the city of Columbus!

 

 

Check out the full Rock On The Range special proshot from the band's headlining performance there on May 17, 2015.

 

The last time the band performed in the city with Brad Delson was all the way back in 2008 on the Winter Minutes To Midnight North American Tour, and Mr. Delson certainly got worked hard that night. Opening with a heavy combination of 'No More Sorrow' with its long intro and 'Don't Stay,' the band was in great form following a bout of sickness by Chester a few weeks prior. He felt so good, in fact, that he managed to pull off the full scream in 'Given Up' at this show - the last time he did so at a live show! Rarities from the record like 'The Little Things Give You Away,' 'Valentine's Day,' and 'In Between' dotted the set before an epic finale of 'One Step Closer' with both its extended intro and outro and 'Faint' closed the show. The fact the band hasn't visited Columbus much in the last decade and a half may lend to the fact that they visited there a lot early on - on the Meteora cycle, they played three shows there alone! Two stops in Ohio kicked off the band's final tour of the cycle, Projekt Revolution 2004, with Columbus being the second show. This setlist featured some of the band's most legendary moments, including the outro transition between 'Figure.09' and 'From The Inside' as well as the band's cover of Nine Inch Nails' 'Wish.' The band performed there earlier in the year as well, headlining the city's Nationwide Arena in January 2004. The setlist isn't fully confirmed, but we do know songs like 'Nobody's Listening' and 'My December' gave fans a big treat. Sonny Sandoval (P.O.D.), Doug Robb (Hoobastank), and Dan Marsala (Story Of The Year) all came out for 'One Step Closer' at the end of the show. The esteemed Summer Sanitarium 2003 tour where the band opened for Metallica visited Columbus as well - the setlist is unknown, but if Live In Texas is any indiction, the crowd likely heard tracks like 'P5hng Me A*wy' and 'Numb' fresh off its live debut. 

 

The band made their initial impact in the city known on the Hybrid Theory Tour, playing in the city four times in total! The last stop there of the tour was on the Family Values Tour late in 2001, where the band played before Stone Temple Pilots, a band Chester would act as the lead singer for for a few years over a decade later. Chester would come out to sing 'Dead & Bloated' with them at a few stops on the tour! The recording of 'Wonderful' featuring Chester that was released on a promo CD later on was actually recorded in-studio and didn't come from this tour. The band visited there in the summer as well on the Ozzfest, while in February they played a smaller theater show at the Street Soldier Tour - the setlist for all of these are unknown, but we do know the Mike Shinoda Remix of 'High Voltage' was played at first show of 2001 from a Rolling Stone review.  Their first show in the city ever was late in 2000 right after Hybrid Theory had dropped, on Papa Roach's Master Bay Tour. The band was actually supposed to play their first show in the city much earlier in the year on the Kottonmouth Kings' Ridin' High Tour, but the band had to drop out because Chester had to fly back to California due to a family emergency. It's been a long time since the band has continued their history in the city, but the time is now!

 

Linkin Park's last show in Greenville, South Carolina certainly took the arena portion of the leg out on a bang! Debuting Set F5, with the Set C theme ('Burn It Down' theme), the band launched the show with 'Somewhere I Belong' before rotating in 'Cut The Bridge' for another run in the limelight. 'Up From The Bottom' and 'Where'd You Go,' also new additions to the set lately, kept the crowd happy and jamming along as well. Mike's solo medley featured 'Step Up' during the extended portion, keeping his record of different verses every night alive. 'IGYEIH' immediately followed for its second performance following its debut in Raleigh the show prior. grandson came out for 'One Step Closer' once again to round things out for the first half of the set. In the second half, 'Stained' returned yet again after 'Lost,' before Mike played 'One' by Metallica over the extended intro of 'Overflow' and Colin was challenged to a Bossa nova intro to 'Numb' once again. 'Points Of Authority' made its encore debut in the rotation slot before 'Bleed It Out' closed the show with a verse of 'A Place For My Head' over the extended bridge. We're not quite sure yet what'll be missing from the headlining set as opposed to the festival set, but the band will definitely keep things fresh. The only other festival they played on the cycle was late last year as Saudi Arabia's Soundstorm Festival, the first show the band ever played in the country. That show's set was quite similar to the launch show setlist with a few additions, so maybe the set will look something like that one. It'll be exciting to see if any collaborations happen as the band will be in the company of many old friends!

 

 

Linkin Park's only other festival appearance so far on this album cycle was in Saudi Arabia, for their first show in the country back on December 12, 2024 at the Soundstorm Festival.

 

Who's going to the show? Mark (Hahninator) will be there and ready to rock for round 2 of Linkin Park's Ohio festivals, so be sure to say hi if you see him! Weatherman Rogue Soul reporting in a pretty lovely day in. Columbus tomorrow - won't be too hot or too cold, and will be the perfect weather for jamming. After this show, Linkin Park wraps up the first U.S. leg of the tour with one last show, a headlining appearance for Florida's Welcome To Rockville before heading off to Europe next month for more festivals and stadium shows! The band will also perform the for the UEFA Champions League Kick Off at the end of the month in München, Germany. 

 

We'll have you covered on everything the band does at this show and everything they whip out for the rest of the year, so be sure to sign up on the forums and follow us on social media (Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook)!

[LPLStaff]

Was at the Rock on the Range 2015 show - picked one show that summer to see LP to get A Line in the Sand and was pretty disappointed they played with no Brad. It was the last time I saw the original band play.

 

This is a great festival and I'm going tomorrow, 10 years later... crazy. Hope LP's set gets extended to 2 hours since Incubus canceled.

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

2 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

Was at the Rock on the Range 2015 show - picked one show that summer to see LP to get A Line in the Sand and was pretty disappointed they played with no Brad. It was the last time I saw the original band play.

 

This is a great festival and I'm going tomorrow, 10 years later... crazy. Hope LP's set gets extended to 2 hours since Incubus canceled.

 

What ? You didn't see the band during the OMLL cycle? (except HB)

[Stewe]

Will the festival be livestreamed?

Edited Saturday at 08:43 AM by Stewe

[MMM]

So, it's the first rock/metal festival after coming back with a new line-up. I'm curious about the reception by the mixed audience

[RiderSSPU]

6 hours ago, JZLP-Benningstrong said:

 

What ? You didn't see the band during the OMLL cycle? (except HB)

The band never played a show in the US for One More Light due to the tragedy but the US tour was announced and tickets were already on sale so it’s likely someone located in the US would have missed the OML tour completely. 

[Stewe]

5 minutes ago, RiderSSPU said:

The band never played a show in the US for One More Light due to the tragedy but the US tour was announced and tickets were already on sale so it’s likely someone located in the US would have missed the OML tour completely. 

They played two shows in the US before the European tour, Las Vegas and Burbank (the iHeartRadio theater) but most people missed the band on that tour since the venues are small 

[LPLStaff]

4 hours ago, Stewe said:

Will the festival be livestreamed?

No, not this one. And cell service is very bad there so I may not be able to send updates on the set until after. I’ll take notes on the phone. 

 

8 hours ago, JZLP-Benningstrong said:

 

What ? You didn't see the band during the OMLL cycle? (except HB)

They flat out didn’t play any US shows besides a few club / promo appearances. The tour was canceled I think a week before. Awful. Wanted to do Vegas but had so many OML summer tour tickets so I waited. 

 

3 hours ago, MMM said:

So, it's the first rock/metal festival after coming back with a new line-up. I'm curious about the reception by the mixed audience

Should be great. Crowd was wild in 2015 for them. We’ll see. If people don’t like the new LP then they just won’t stick around for their set. 

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

Hey man serious question! @LPLStaff the ultimate battle

 

Who's the best Step Brad? 
Benjamin Chandler vs Alex vs Sean Paden

 

edit: I was just listening to Rock On The Range with Benjamin and he sounds way way better than Alex, more similar to Brad's tone.

 

What happened w Benjamin? is he part of the band?

Would love to have your opinion! not sure if i missed someone who has filled in for Brad.

Edited Saturday at 08:10 PM by JZLP-Benningstrong

[JerseyShore]

16 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

Was at the Rock on the Range 2015 show - picked one show that summer to see LP to get A Line in the Sand and was pretty disappointed they played with no Brad. It was the last time I saw the original band play.

 

This is a great festival and I'm going tomorrow, 10 years later... crazy. Hope LP's set gets extended to 2 hours since Incubus canceled.

Just watched some of that 2015 show and Benjamin Chandler had a nice solo on the WID extended bridge (which I miss so much btw).

 

Have fun!!!!

[Stewe]

17 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

 

This is a great festival and I'm going tomorrow, 10 years later... crazy. Hope LP's set gets extended to 2 hours since Incubus canceled.

Are confirmed that the band will play only 90 minutes? 

[Ahfack]

1 hour ago, Stewe said:

Are confirmed that the band will play only 90 minutes? 

ppl in lp discord saying they extended I Prevail's setlist and added a band called Beartooth

 

They also have a Rock Royalty display up

 

pics credit to darklighter14 in lp discord

 

 

 

[c3bebuilder]

3 hours ago, JZLP-Benningstrong said:

Hey man serious question! @LPLStaff the ultimate battle

 

Who's the best Step Brad? 
Benjamin Chandler vs Alex vs Sean Paden

 

edit: I was just listening to Rock On The Range with Benjamin and he sounds way way better than Alex, more similar to Brad's tone.

 

What happened w Benjamin? is he part of the band?

Would love to have your opinion! not sure if i missed someone who has filled in for Brad.

Benjamin still works for LP as Alex’s guitar tech now. Also Sean never filled in for Brad when he was the guitar tech.

[Ahfack]

lol this was from a couple hours ago, hopefully dino sticks around for two-faced!

 

 

 

[Ahfack]

Stickers + Guitar pick given to rock royalty, pic credit patriziodamore in lp discord

 

darklighter14 (lpdiscord) met Colin!!

 

Vash (lpdiscord) met Colin!!

 

Closeups of the guitar pieces: (darklighter14 lpdiscord)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ahfack]

Interview with Mike/Colin

 

 

[blackout]

Is it possible that they'll play longer sets on other festivals or it's probably this 90-minute set on every festival? I know that nobody really knows, I'm just wondering. I'm going to the festival in July and LP is the headliner. 90 minutes is fine, of course, but the longer, the better, obviously 😅I hope we'll get some rotation spots in festival setlists too because I'd like some surprises.

[ScottiePippo]

34 minutes ago, blackout said:

Is it possible that they'll play longer sets on other festivals or it's probably this 90-minute set on every festival? I know that nobody really knows, I'm just wondering. I'm going to the festival in July and LP is the headliner. 90 minutes is fine, of course, but the longer, the better, obviously 😅I hope we'll get some rotation spots in festival setlists too because I'd like some surprises.

I feel like they will play 90 minutes set at every festival. I'm seeing them in Italy, it's a festival and I don't have much hope for a longer setlist. It's ok, at least there are solid openers

[LPLStaff]

Almost all festival schedules are out and they are 90 mins at everything except one is 100 mins. We updated the 2025 pages with that info that we could find.