hahninator

It's honestly wrong for us to speculate so much....I'm just trying to report the facts but a little speculation always slips in since LP is quiet on their end of it. They cut the M&Gs from 100 to like 50, then the 20 person ones (2008-2009), then back up to 30-50 these days.... HCT 2012 and IAVA 2014 had their own M&Gs of a few people with LP, plus the LPU M&G each show. Due to the sponsorship with Mercedes this tour, they probably have a big Mercedes M&G before the show and LP is human...they probably get exhausted meeting 150 fans before a show, signing this and that, shaking so many hands. That's a lot of people. They might have just done the Mercedes M&Gs this tour while Lorenzo handles the LPU Meetups events and brings the band in for a surprise to shake hands, talk for a minute and take a group picture. It's not the typical way of doing it but it's most definitely a one-time thing for China, as normal M&Gs are back in Europe. Kudos to Lorenzo for doing the Meetups events, since it's obviously not his decision if the band WANTS to meet that many people before a show. At least this way, fans in 2 cities can meet the band.

Thanks for the reply I'm not going to attack you for your opinion. The only rock shows I have seen take place in China have been seated, BUT you live there so obviously you know way more about it than me - I apologize if I stated that incorrectly and I'll gladly edit it to correct it. All LP shows I've covered there have been seated as far as I know. The Shenzhen crowd stuff is well documented...security telling people to sit down, and the fact that there are/were military (or full-geared police) personnel at the shows. Vorist even said the fans were made to sit down before the Nanjing show. I agree with you about the Meetups. LP is silent on our end, but it appears they chose Mercedes as the sponsor and somehow Mercedes has a monopoly on the M&Gs. At the end of the day, it's up to LP whether they want to meet the LPU so I guess they didn't want to do it this tour every show. Your last sentence in that paragraph I support fully. Last two paragraphs as in .....? "This is because of the Chinese government's fear of violence and/or a riot at the shows (since they don't truly understand rock music)."

YouTube is banned there so we'll have to check Weibo. I can find these 15 second clips on Weibo (similar to Instagram videos), but not any full ones.

Probably not, it was likely LP's decision at the end of the day.

Not much is going on in the world of Linkin Park, so we might as well get the Shanghai thread going a little early. I'll do it a little differently and give a little background information on the band playing China. Shanghai will be the third show in China out of five for Linkin Park, following Nanjing on the 17th and Shenzhen on the 19th. Linkin Park has played Shanghai twice before, going back to 2007 with Minutes To Midnight. The LPTV episode from that tour chronicles it pretty well, so check that out: The band talked about that show for quite a while afterward. It was rumored in late 2006 to happen in April 2007....remember that rumor? Anyway, that was Linkin Park's first-ever show in China and it was a HUGE deal for the Chinese too. Their government was so paranoid that they had their military forces in full-on riot gear at the show just in case something went wrong. Mike later said that he looked down during the show to see those same troops "nodding along" to the music, smiling, and having a great time. Everything went off flawlessly....that's huge! Along with Shanghai, the band made a stop in the highly-demanded city of Hong Kong. It took a lot to get Linkin Park to China in the first place.... as far back as the Seoul 2003 Meet & Greet on the Meteora touring cycle, Chinese fans flew to Seoul to present the band with a large banner signed by Chinese fans. It impressed Linkin Park and they actually decided to put a picture of this in the Live In Texas CD/DVD release *in the album's photo collage). The band's albums were selling so well there that they finally made it to China in 2007 and the rest is history....it went off so well they were invited back in 2008 for THREE stadium shows. Usually a very "controlled"/locked-down country, one thing that is great for the relationship between China and Linkin Park is that the band is able to play these huge stadiums there that they can't play almost anywhere else in the world. Sadly, the 2008 shows were canceled and even though Linkin Park didn't play a big tour in 2009, they made it to that area of the world for a return show in Shanghai (at Shanghai Stadium) as well as a Macao show. Shanghai unfortunately was subject to the government restrictions I'm sure you already know about (dropping two songs) but Macao was a great show too, ending the international dates for the New Divide promo shows. Hong Kong is extremely close to Macao, and Linkin Park has actually sold out every show they've ever held in Hong Kong (2004, 2007, 2011, and 2013) with their last show there even hosting a LPU Summit #9. Lots of fans in Hong Kong just made the trip to Shenzhen, actually. This show will be at Hongkou Footbanging Stadium, the same venue as 2007 meaning this is where the band's first show in China took place. Pretty cool! This is the fifth Linkin Park show to be held in China and the third in Shanghai. Anyway, the band is using Shanghai as their "HQ" for this tour, meaning they generally live there and fly to each show and back afterwards (similar to Sydney in 2013 and Berlin in 2014). Next, we'll cover what we DO know from this tour: 1. Keys To The Kingdom will not be played. The band did not rehearse at Third Encore as usual before this tour, so they held a rare soundcheck before the show in Nanjing. One day obviously isn't enough time to run through a new song so we won't be hearing the song this tour. It's actually unlikely to even come into the setlists in Europe since there will only be ELEVEN shows left on The Hunting Party Tour starting with Pukkelpop, sooo.....we might not ever see the song played live sadly. 2. Crawling is likely gone for another big period of time. In 2012, the band listed Crawling on Set C and Set B on the Honda Civic Tour at the first few shows, but never played the song at all on the tour. In 2014 (the first performance of it since July 2012, at Download Festival), Mike said that Crawling would be the first to go for new songs. Well, they kept a very short, sped up version of it for the rest. of the year. They finally brought back Crawling in FULL for both Mexico shows in June, but it sounded pretty rough. The band isn't starting the song as well as they used to...the beginning sounds pretty rough...and it's no secret that the song is hard for Chester to sing these days. We might have seen the last Crawling for a while, unless the band plays Hybrid Theory in full in October as rumored. 3. Mercedes Benz must have one hell of a deal for the Meet & Greets. The LPU is getting the short end of the stick on this tour...there are no customary Meet & Greets for them, which is surprising as it's Linkin Park's first tour ever in China. Anyway, Mercedes Benz sponsors this tour and has had all sorts of exclusive events for their car buyers. First, the press event (with an LP Q&A) the day before the tour started in Shanghai was open exclusively to Mercedes Benz car buyers in China. Normal fans weren't able to attend, but a few somehow slipped in at the last second. Next, with the LPU M&Gs gone, there are actual Mercedes Benz M&Gs before the shows, complete with a Q&A session and pictures with the band in front of a Mercedes backdrop. The LPU decided to hold LPU Meetups events in Shenzhen and Chongqing ONLY. These aren't customary M&Gs and the band's participation wasn't even mentioned. However in Shenzhen, attendees were able to meet Linkin Park but NOT get autographs. They could take one group picture with the band AFTER the Mercedes Benz fans could meet the band (again, Mercedes on top). This is very interesting as this type of thing has never happened before with a tour sponsor and should only be for this China Tour. The Honda Civic Tour in 2012 had their own M&Gs with LP, but the LPU also got their own. It is unknown why the LPU cannot have their customary M&Gs on this tour, and since the band has remained silent on these types of things (from Brad's absence in May to this situation), we will never truly know. 4. The songs are being performed censored. Even though the list of songs was approved to be played by the Chinese government, Given Up, Welcome, Remember The Name, and Bleed It Out are all censored. This is a first. 5. The Chinese police/SWAT team is intense. As you might know, there is no general admission section at these shows and they are completely seated. This is because of the Chinese government's fear of violence and/or a riot at the shows (since they don't truly understand rock music). Fans were instructed to sit down in their chairs at different points before and during the shows. Fans who decided to stand on their plastic chairs were actually yelled at during the shows. 6. Linkin Park won't do anything risky this tour. A song uncensored? A song not on the approved songs list? Highly doubtful. This is a highly successful tour for Linkin Park monetary-wise, and they are playing stadiums. Obviously they want to be able to come back every few years, so they'll play it as safe as possible so that the Chinese fans and more importantly, the Chinese government, are all impressed. Anyway, this should summarize the tour to this point pretty well for you. We probably won't see these random new LPU Meetup events in Europe, even though there is no LPU Summit, because there will be LPU M&Gs. It is unknown why the band hasn't decided to hold a Summit for the rest of the touring cycle after Calgary was canceled in February, but hopefully we will see one in 2016. As of right now, 2015 will be the first year since the Summits were created that we haven't seen one, but 2014 did tie 2011's record for THREE in one year. We can't be TOO spoiled, right? The tour continues on in Chongqing on the 24th and Beijing on the 26th before the band takes a break before Europe. The tour dates can be found here. Don't miss the Beijing webcast on the 26th!

Mercedes obviously has some type of huge monopoly here on LP meeting fans, because they are hosting M&Gs at the shows for their car people, and they are even AT the LPU Meetups. They dumped huge money into the tour, which is probably why there aren't M&Gs. That's on LP at this point though because they'd have to make time themselves for the LPU and to make the LPU a priority. They probably only want to meet X amount of people before a show. I'm very surprised the Mercedes people were at the LPU Meetups event, though. No autographs, only a group picture, and the Mercedes people went first. Wow.

Linkin Park won't do anything testy on this tour, so those songs surely were approved in some form or fashion by the Chinese. LP is even censoring the songs for their government. I mean I don't blame them since they sadly had to cancel some huge 2008 shows and then 3 stadium shows in 2011 due to the Dalai Lama situation. This is their first time back since 2009, and first time ever actually playing more than one show in China. If this goes well they'll surely come back every 2-3 years because there's almost no other place on the entire planet LP can play stadiums this large, and there's a lot of money to be made.

Should say verse 3.

Well Mike, you technically can play anything now, just not the verses from someone else. But he did rap Ryu's Believe Me verse. He's more flexible now that he's the DJ and emcee.

Mike's new demo clip he played in Shanghai at the press conference sounds like a damn Wretches 3.0. (2.0 being Bruiser). Epic sound. I know it can change 100 times but that direction is fantastic. Using the electronics in a good way like ATS is fantastic. If it's like LT, then I'll run the other way.

Same setlist of course, but Crawling no longer listed. Sucks they don't replace it with something else. LPU Meetups had the band there surprisingly even though the LPU didn't mention it. However, Mercedes Benz was there too. Couldn't get autographs, just a group picture. Geeze.

Is there a good video of Welcome played with LP?

Good luck! Hope that the band shows up at the Meetup.

What setlist? Here's the Nanjing setlist picture (no UIG): https://instagram.com/p/5PmtltO1vZ/ I'm not sure. China is crazy, so they'd probably pull the plug on the show and force LP to end it as soon as they figured out what was going on. Is YouTube banned in China? Twitter and Instagram are, so it wouldn't surprise me.

Nanjing was basically like a mini LPU Summit. Well, a Mercedes Benz Summit. Soundcheck, Q&A session, M&G with the cool backdrop behind them. With those M&Gs going on, I don't understand why no Meet & Greets for the LPU. Makes no sense.

I don't understand why if they drop a song they don't replace it. Ok they dropped Crawling but don't replace it with Rebellion or APFMH or anything? I'm surprised still no GATS too.

Just looked into this. They ended up webcasting 172 hours of the festival. Tons of bands, even bands that played the day LP played. Kings Of Leon, Gogol Bordello, all sorts of stuff. Halestorm. And of course, not even one LP song. Disappointing.

Great work!

Yep. Originally, M&Gs were held after shows, then they started moving them to before shows. There have always been random shows that did not have them, such as KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas ones, or even the NYC 2010 ATS Release Show. Every now and then there's a show without one, but every TOUR has had them. In 2000 and 2001, they'd just meet fans after the shows, before the LPU was created. They'd come out during Ozzfest or during radio show signings. Then with the official M&Gs it guaranteed fans an opportunity to meet them. On the LPU Tour in 2003, the M&Gs were after the shows. The LPTVs from the rest of 2003 make it seem like the switch to BEFORE the shows happened on Projekt Revolution 2003. Anyway, every tour has had them until this one.

That's the entire reason to join the LPU, a M&G to meet the band. And first tour ever in China, plus the only Asia dates for THP. Ouch.

After the "middle" show of the tour in Shanghai on July 22nd, Joe will play another DJ set. The location will be at Shanghai's LUCE. It is dubbed the "official Linkin Park after party", but the band didn't mention if other LP members would be in attendance or not, meaning that it's likely just Joe. This is Joe's second DJ set of the month. He just DJed on July 15th at Toon Workshop's Tokyo Launch Party on his way to China for the Linkin Park tour. A list of his previous DJ sets can be found here. The Hunting Party Chinese Tour will be the first tour in the band's history to not have LPU Meet & Greets. Since those have been held before in China, it is unknown what the issue was this time, but fans can at least meet Joe in Shanghai at this event.

Hey Geki. Bye Geki.

Well, no Keys since they didn't even rehearse for these shows.

POA 2007-2009 had the hits ending. Brad would hold up fingers to Rob to tell him how many hits he wanted to do to end the song. It became so commonplace that we decided to never list it. Every now and then they'd fuck it up, like Sonisphere UK 2009.