hahninator

Well it's possible you could be right. I assume they'd do the USA festival differently but I might be wrong because of what they say on their homepage: "These are the first names to join our line-up, we will be announcing more headliners, attractions and news in the next weeks, stay tuned!" The way I saw it was: May 8-9 Main Stage: Metallica and Linkin Park May 8-9 Sunset Stage: Deftones + others May 15-16 Main Stage: Taylor Swift and No Doubt May 15-16 Sunset Stage: John Legend + others But they are booking 100+ bands, so I guess it's entirely possible LP could not be headlining one of the days.

Hey can someone compile a list of facts from Mike's listening party for THP + other THP ones? I'll add them right away. Just cool stuff like about the sample in Keys, etc. ALITS intro is from ATS era. Stuff like that.

Actually Daron there is a great idea. My prediction on the setlist: 01. Mashup Intro #2 02. GATS 03. Given Up 04. Points or OSC 05. Wastelands 06. Rebellion 07. Until It's Gone 08. Burn It Down 09. In The End or Numb 10. New Divide 11. Faint

Yeah but who plays on day two then? I think Metallica headlines one day and LP the other day. They didn't announce any other big bands for the rock weekend. Deftones aren't big enough to headline an outdoor festival like this.

That doesn't make any sense to me considering Metallica and LP are the rock headliners and the rock portion of the event is a Friday and a Saturday.

No because they will likely play MSG. Wantagh is really hard to get to from NYC.

They'll never play Alabama I bet they play Nashville.

While on Carnivores Tour, we heard a few rumblings about an upcoming winter arena tour in North America for Linkin Park. However, we heard the exact same thing on Honda Civic Tour 2012 (before the scrapped European Fall Tour that year) and the tour didn't end up happening as Linkin Park went to New Zealand and then Australia for Soundwave instead. A few things have been mentioned about a North American Tour next year. In the September 18th LPU Chat with Joe, someone asked if the band would be doing another USA tour after the European shows for The Hunting Party, to which he replied, "yes." Most recently, FOH Online did a great press piece on the Linkin Park crew that has quote of "Next up, we’re doing arena tours in Europe with the same P.A., rehearsing in late October and performing in November. Then shows in Brazil and there’s some talk of another U.S. arena tour in January.” And way back in fall 2013, Chester mentioned to radio that Linkin Park was preparing a North American Tour for 2015. While some of these simply just mention a tour of the continent in 2015, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they would do an arena tour since the summer amphitheaters were covered on Carnivores. The band has also yet to hit other markets such as Asia and Australia (perhaps the Middle East as well) for The Hunting Party. It will have been four years since they had last played at Madison Square Garden and four years since a North American tour of arenas. Linkin Park usually announces these shows only a few months before instead of much earlier like a summer tour. The last arena tour in North America for A Thousand Suns was announced on November 15, 2010. That time period is approaching rapidly and also falls in the middle of the upcoming European Tour, so time will tell. As far as other rumors go, the Multishow broadcasters for the Belo Horizonte, Brazil webcast mentioned that Linkin Park is rumored to headline Rock In Rio 2015 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between September 18th and 27th and that they could also perform in Sao Paulo around the same time. A European Tour for next summer (August time frame) is rumored - specifically, a return to Germany. The band's first show in India as well as an Asia and Australia run is expected in mid-to-late 2015. What do you think?

You disagree?

Ear infection confirmed. No worries.

Probably! No secret that I disliked WFTE a LOT in 2010-2011 when they debuted it. Chester turned up SO loud on the rapping parts really killed the song for me. Now with Apaches, Wall Of Noise and the fixed loudness on Chester rapping (which should be 100% Mike and 0% Chester, in my opinion), the song is an anthem. I do like the intros and outros they do live - those are always a very appealing part of the show to me. But yes, WFTE was a mess to me before they fixed the volume of Chester and before they added the intro/outro; amazing what can happen to a song with a few changes. Final Masquerade is fine. Just not a huge fan of the song. I'd rather see something heavier. If they want to play it, play it, not a huge complaint from me.

I don't want to post the same thing twice... I briefly touched on this topic in another thread here. I do agree that Brad seems uninterested in the heavier stuff on stage just based SOLELY on his on stage appearance/antics. He doesn't jam on the heavier songs but he blows up on Castle Of Dance, Iridescent, etc. This even goes back to 2007-2011 when he LOVED that Shadow Of The Day solo (see Road To Revolution if you don't know what I am talking about). He likes the slower stuff apparently. When it comes to who outvoted Mike and Chester on APFMH, I am tending to think that it's Brad. It was refreshing to see Benjamin up there rocking it on the bridge of Somewhere I Belong, etc. Bleed It Out sounded a lot better to me, probably because it's just different than what I have been used to since 2007. Benjamin did a great job. The songs don't sound the exact same without Brad, but a little difference is good sometimes to change it up. I find it odd no one in the band mentioned it before, during, or after these shows about Brad. We'll see if he returns this weekend.

In regards to APFMH: I don't know if it's ONLY Brad. Dmitry asked Mike in Holmdel this year about it and Mike said he knows fans want it but he was "outvoted" on it in the setlists. Chester wants to play it, he loves the song and it's no secret he blows the fuck up on it. Chester even got the song played in Melbourne last year, when it was audibly obviously that the fans wanted ITE over APFMH when it came to that fan vote and Chester said fuck it, let's do APFMH. I love it. I do know that in August, LP didn't show any interest when making the Carnivores setlists in keeping the rarer Hybrid Theory songs around. By that, I am referring to Forgotten, By Myself, and Pushing Me Away. Runaway was kept because the transition to Wastelands is good and even though Chester doesn't like the song, they seem to be ok with keeping part of it. I guess APFMH falls into this category. I can ASSUME that based on Brad's activity on the actual stage that he does not enjoy playing the heavier songs and he likes the different stuff. A good example of this that I can give you is OSC at San Diego in July. He goes behind the keyboard on the bridge and looks extremely uninterested. Fast forward to Carnivores and he blows UP on Castle Of Dance - dancing around and going wild on stage. He doesn't seem to jam at all on the heavier stuff. So I assume it's Brad there, but it could also be Rob and Phoenix. You can rule out Mike and Chester (and probably Joe since he doesn't do much on APFMH), so half of the band is remaining when it comes to APFMH. So based on the on stage antics, Brad is the most likely candidate to me to vote OUT APFMH in the setlists. It's no secret that APFMH is a fan favorite. I know everyone loves Papercut and Points so I don't know how popular APFMH is compared to THOSE songs, but I do know the crowd goes wild for APFMH and loves to see it live. I also agree that surely they get bored playing Numb for the millionth time. Mike this year in an interview (anyone know which one?) or something said that they sometimes make songs in the studio for certain purposes (likely referring to radio play, for a big single to push to radio) that they feel obligated to play live. Aaaaand that's Burn It Down to me, ha. So I bet they're tired of playing that one too. Just drop one of those two and add in APFMH and bam, people are ecstatic.

If you watched the Multishow broadcast of the Belo Horizonte show in Brazil the other night, you might have noticed that Brad was not on stage. We first got the hint that he wasn't there when the band huddled backstage before the show (Multishow is good at showing a few preshow things like that) and Brad was visibly absent after missing the LPU Meet & Greet earlier in the night. When the band took the stage for Guilty All The Same, his tech Benjamin Chandler was in his place. After the show, we found out that Brad didn't make the trip to Brazil and that Benjamin would fill in for the second show as well. This isn't the first time that Brad has missed a few shows. In 2012, Linkin Park flew to Japan for two short TV promo appearances for Living Things and when videos surfaced of those, we saw that a tech named Jeremy was in Brad's place. While they tried to "hide" it in Japan by having Jeremy wear a hoodie and sunglasses on the side of the stage, Benjamin actually came on stage in Brazil and rocked out during the show. In between the two shows, Mike addressed it by saying, "On a serious note, thank you to our tech Jeremy for filling in for Brad, who is sick and couldn't make it to Japan. CC @JP_LinkinPark". What's different this time around is that no one has addressed Benjamin on stage and/or the absence of Brad. 10/21/14 EDIT: A crew member has confirmed that Brad had an ear infection that did not allow him to travel to these shows. Things like this are pretty rare, but here's a short rundown of the rare times something like this has happened before with a band member: 2007.10.16 Hindmarsh, Australia - Chester broke his wrist the night before during the show but managed to finish the show, but Shadow Of The Day, the newest single, was dropped from that setlist since Chester couldn't play guitar. To solve the problem at the this show, Mike's guitar tech Kurt came on stage to play Chester's guitar part on the song. 2008.06.14 Hultsfred, Sweden - Brad became sick on tour (rumored to be an ear infection with prevented him from tflying) and Linkin Park canceled their appearance at the festival a few hours before they were set to play. This was the second cancellation at this festival (after a 2003 one for Chester). 2008.06.15 Interlaken, Switzerland - Brad is ordered to not travel and a second show is also canceled due to his illness. 2011.01.20 Sunrise, Florida - Linkin Park usually rehearses at the venue that starts their North American Tour and at this show, they rehearsed for an hour and a half before the show by performing tracks off of A Thousand Suns and by making the three setlists for the tour that started later that night. Brad missed the soundcheck, soundcheck M&G, and LPU M&G due to being sick, but played the show that night. In his place, the band played prerecorded live guitar tracks over the PA to rehearse, with Mike telling the fans that this does NOT happen at a live show and is only being done for soundcheck purposes. 2011.09.23 Bangkok, Thailand - Phoenix comes down with severe food poisoning (see the show page for Mike's explanation of ALL the injuries/ailments the band suffered at that point on the Asian Tour) and his bass tech Ted fills in for him for the entire show. Only Blackout is dropped from the setlist and the show goes off flawlessly. This is the first time a tech filled in for a band member for an entire show. 2014.06.01 St. Petersburg, Russia - Brad seriously injures his back and Benjamin prepares to fill in and play the full show. Brad shows up at the last minute and plays the show leaning on the side of the stage, which he continues to do for the remainder of the tour. Ironically, this was Benjamin's third show with Linkin Park. What's interesting is that Sean Paden served as Brad's guitar tech for over ten years and did not ever have to fill in for Brad (he was not at the 2012 shows in Japan), but Benjamin has been Brad's guitar tech since earlier this year and has had to fill in twice. So the question remains of - what happened to Brad? Is this just a normal illness and he will be back for the Los Angeles and Scottsdale shows this weekend? Or will he be out for a while? Hopefully he will be good to go and only had to miss two shows. As usual, there are the silly rumors that say he has left the band, etc online...we all know that's not the case and we hope to see him back soon! What do you think about Benjamin? He plays a few parts differently but it's pretty refreshing to hear a different sound on a few songs! And he noticeably seems really interested in the show too!

I'm going to go ahead and agree with that. There are also bits of songs that are really heavy by LP standards. A few examples that I can give are the bridge of Across The Line (a severely underrated LP song) and the bridge of the Figure.09 demo (with very raw Chester screams) are quite heavy to me. The bridge of Given Up counts too. As far as full songs go, you have it nailed. I sure wish they'd play A Line In The Sand live.

Definitely need to hear the Oppenheimer speech over Castle. Some friends are saying Benjamin fucking nailed the show on guitar. Do we have a new guitarist?? Ha. Can we get APFMH?

Oh yes, just those few changes would make the setlist a thousand times better, in my opinion. You can really see the fans blow up for certain songs (all of the ones you mentioned). They should take advantage of that and play them (and play the ones like Papercut in full).

Cool pics from an LPU fan who is at both shows with flags: http://instagram.com/igorlagreca

After watching the highlights (or the parts of the show that really interest me, lol) here are some of my thoughts: - Benjamin on guitar was pretty refreshing. Just letting him play Faint and especially Bleed It Out, the songs sound a bit better/different to me but in a good way. The BIO guitar parts around Rob's solo (see: end of Rob's solo until the end of the song) sound much better than what Brad has been playing there to me. Good job by Benjamin. I noticed on the Somewhere I Belong bridge, he was jamming out next to Mike on stage and that was cool to see. Hell, that's probably more than Brad does in a show anyway in terms of rocking out (besides dancing on Castle Of Dance) - yeah I went there, but I'll take it! No problem there and I'd be interested to see how Benjamin would become acclimated to the stage over the course of a whole tour. I'm sure Brad will be back for the LA/Arizona shows but if they ever been Benjamin again, I'm glad he can deliver. - Chester had an extremely ON night. He was blowing the fuck up. Faint outro he did the ending scream, he nailed Lying From You with the screams, etc. He was kicking ass big time compared to some of the shows I saw this year. Chester rarely has an off night...I've only seen a few and I've seen 29 shows. Belo Horizonte was a quality show for him. I really love that Lying From You performance. - The setlist just kills me. I think if you start blowing through some of your most well known songs live without putting an emphasis on them in the setlist, you'll start to have some problems. I'm referring to One Step Closer here, how it just comes out of nowhere (in a bad sense, not a good sense) and then bam it's gone. I wish they'd put that back at the start or end of the show. With GATS opening, almost no one knows what's going on and it's not some huge epic show opener. Open with something people are familiar with, in my opinion. They used to make a huge statement by playing 7-8 badass, rock songs in a row (see 2007-2009 setlists, and a lot of 2010-2011 setlists, and even some 2012-2013 ones) to start the show that people knew. I still hate the middle of the setlist....lots of the club stuff and unnecessary stuff but that's just my personal opinion haha. Definitely don't want to take the emphasis off of Apaches, because WFTE is a MONSTER now and it really kicks ass live. The encore is just a disaster and is the worst they've ever played, seriously. Lost In The Echo in short is pretty much as devastating as a short Papercut. Damn. Two EXTREMELY strong live tracks and they cut them, but they want to play Numb in full. Oh man. And they still think Bleed It Out is some huge, epic party anthem to close a show. Let's get some energy going again. Perhaps the problem is that for the first time since 2007, there is a legit lack of big diversity among the setlists. They have two setlists, the same songs open and close, the same songs make up the core structure, and there isn't a lot of differences. If they had three pretty different sets (aka if they actually spent a lot of time rehearsing for this world tour) they could kick ass and take names live again with the SETLISTS (not the live energy by Mike and Chester, which seems good still). Looks about 600x better to me: Mashup Intro #1 Faint Points Of Authority Lying From You Blackout (Short) > Papercut Lost In The Echo (2012 Intro) Runaway (Full) Wastelands Waiting For The End (Apaches + Wall Of Noise) Don't Stay Somewhere I Belong Rebellion or Keys or All For Nothing What I've Done (AMBO Intro) Pushing Me Away Breaking The Habit -random rare song like By Myself, Forgotten, Wretches, etc- Guilty All The Same In The End One Step Closer -------------------- Until It's Gone (Europe Intro) No More Sorrow (Long Intro) A Place For My Head A Line In The Sand

The announcers of the Multishow webcast last night mentioned LP was likely going to play Rock In Rio 2015 in Brazil as well as Sao Paulo and a few other cities.

They always do that when they haven't been to an area in a while. Always "new" shit for that area, but not in general.

Add the xx date for the first one since we don't know which one is truly correct. Then add the March 1996 one. I researched that myself and came to the same conclusion. Unless this Super Bowl party show was unlisted and was somehow never posted about online, then I think we have the right one. It's too close to February (Super Bowl) to not be right, IMO. It all adds up...Sean's memory probably is just a little hazy since this was all the way back in 1996.

I do wish they'd announce things like this. Mike took the time at the soundcheck we saw to explain about Brad, etc, but that's not a normal show. At a show he should just take the time and say "Hey Brad isn't here tonight, we're sorry he couldn't make it, send him some good vibes" or something. I am surprised/semi confused that they'd cancel shows in 2008 due to no Brad, but they'd play the shows in 2012 and 2014 without him. Same for Phoenix. It might be the same thing that happened with Muse and their Rock In Rio / Coachella performances this year....Bellamy was extremely sick and they'd cancel 99.9% of the time but the money was so big for these shows that pulling out would have been a disaster for them.

They come back because there is a huge demand. The legit promoters want them there and they know they'll bring huge crowds. The São Paulo 2004, 2010, and 2012 crowds were INSANELY huge. Also, the amount of money they were paid for these two festivals is the exact same amount as they were offered to do these two festivals plus three headlining shows with PATD in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and I think the third city was Curitiba. Or Porto Alegre. Anyway shit fell through because the band wanted PATD in a packaged deal but the promoters didn't so they only did these two shows. Instead, they will return in 2015 to headline Rock In Rio. There is a big demand there and there is a lot of money for LP to gain by playing there when dealing with legit promoters, venues, festivals, etc. The entire country is not garbage as you assume. Great bands like Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, etc perform there and do well too. I only know of two legit cases where shit didn't work well for bands there. DMB played a show there in the last few years...2010 I think, where they said it was the worst show in their career LOL. Zero fans knew anything. Pretty odd. And then the whole canceled NIN thing in 2008 with the sketch promoters fucking Trent Reznor (which also happened in Taiwan in 2009 too). And I think AGAIN in Asia for NIN in 2013? Lmao. Additionally Coldplay did cancel an entire tour there for their last CD and I do think that has to deal with sketch business deals too. So you have some valid points.

Brad didn't make the trip to Brazil, apparently.