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To anybody who doesn't actively follow the band online, it most certainly is. I would say less than 5% of fans in attendance at a Linkin Park show these days have ever heard a single song from the HTEP. They haven't...or if they have, it's happened so rarely that even I'm not aware of it. I don't think you realize just how hard it is for LP to change a setlist on the fly. -Brad's pedalboard has all the songs of a setlist programmed in order with all the effects changes and everything pre-planned out. If LP were to add a song at the last minute, he would have to completely reprogram his entire guitar effects rig. -The band plays to a click track that is started by their monitor engineer from offstage before each song. The tempos for all the songs are known well ahead of the start of a tour. This is the kind of stuff the band works out during rehearsals weeks before a tour begins. Ethan wouldn't have a clue what the tempo of a song was if the band added it at the last minute, and without a click track, all of LP's prerecorded samples would get off sync with the live instruments. -Joe's Scratch Live program has the show setlist programmed into it with all the subsequent samples, similar to how Brad's guitar rig is. Joe's sampler also doesn't have every single song from the Linkin Park catalog programmed into it at any given time, so LP can't just add a song on a whim, because they likely don't have all the necessary samples to play it. -The road crew. The guitar/bass techs have all the tunings/instrument changes worked out during rehearsals, throwing a new song into the set would completely throw that off. Pooch mixes the show using a digital mixing profile, which much like Brad's guitar rig and Joe's computer, has all of the songs pre-programmed in order, along with what level/EQ settings go along with each of them. The light show is also run by a computer that syncs everything to the music. LP would have to consult with their ENTIRE touring crew and make the appropriate changes before they could even think about doing a surprise performance of a song, if they wanted it to work just as well as the rest of a setlist, anyway. People really need to realize that nearly every aspect of a Linkin Park live performance is predetermined during rehearsals, and it's next to impossible for a band like LP that relies so heavily on computers and pre-recorded samples/pre-programmed settings for their live shows to do an impromptu performance of...well, anything.

I have a feeling they're just going to roll out the remaining 2008/2009 LPTV episodes when the promotional campaign for the new album starts to ramp up, similar to what they did with the retrospective LPTV episodes before MTM came out.

If they do at all, I bet you anything it'll just be the same 5 we already have. Which is pretty much the same answer that's been given every time the band's been asked about another LPU tour in the future. Don't count on it. Highly doubtful it was in 2001. It was most likely sometime in 2000.

The highest note Chester hits full-voice that I'm aware of is a high B in the chorus of New Divide. I'm not sure, but I think the lowest he goes in an LP song is in the verses of Leave Out All the Rest. He sings lower than that on some Grey Daze material though.

I like their more experimental and/or heavier stuff from later in their career. I don't care for too much of their stuff prior to Revolver though.

I think a lot of decisions of that variety can be made without him there. They can always email/text/call him with updates on what they've been working on, what he needs to listen to or sing on when he gets back...they may even email him seeds when he's out on tour if they're not overly worried about the security of doing so. Even when Chester's not busy with DBS, he's still probably the least-present of the members of the band when they're at the studio, because he's the only one who doesn't still live in the L.A. area (he moved back to Arizona a couple years ago). They probably have a system worked out that maximizes their output when he's there, but keeps things going when he isn't.

"Linkin Park: 8-Bit Rebellion" is the title of the app, it's scheduled for release sometime in early 2010.

Not much...I think Mike actually sings falsetto more often with all the high backing vocal parts he does (first half of TLTGYA, Valentine's Day, SOTD, Points of Authority, No More Sorrow, Reanimation bridge of One Step Closer, etc.). I know that the "ahhh" after the first chorus in Let Down is definitely falsetto, and a lot of the harmonies on the DBS album probably are too, but I'm drawing a blank on any LP falsetto parts that Chester sings.

He's said in numerous interviews that he's only in the studio with LP when he's needed, which is usually to put his vocals on songs that are otherwise finished already. He's also said that Mike accounts for most of "the Linkin Park sound." Just look at the LPU9 CD, Chester only contributed to 3 of the 9 demos, and really only 2 of them were anything major (he's only on Faint during the bridge, and all he does is whisper/scream "I" and "You"). It's a well-known fact that most of Hybrid Theory resulted from song ideas Mike and Brad came up with. A bunch of the Minutes to Midnight songs were almost entirely written by Mike, both musically and lyrically. How many non-vocal contributions has Chester made to Linkin Park songs? The acoustic guitar sample that turned into Somewhere I Belong, the piano piece that became the Shadow of the Day guitar solo...that's about all that I can think of. He writes barely any of the music and maybe a third of the lyrics (Mike writes all the rap parts and also a lot of the singing parts). He's by far the least important member of the band when it comes to writing. The other 5 guys could write an entire album without him and just call him in when it's time to record vocals, and nobody would know the difference.

I really don't see how Dead By Sunrise is holding up the Linkin Park album when Chester's only needed for maybe 5% of the recording process of a Linkin Park album. We all know Mike is the primary writer in the band, both musically and lyrically.

PLEASE KROQ, can you just once have a webcast with decent audio? Pretty please?

FYI for anybody wondering "wait, I thought Hybrid Theory had sold 10 million+ copies and got a Diamond award from the RIAA?" RIAA certifies albums based on copies shipped, not copies sold. Plus, not every copy of an album sold goes through the Nielsen Soundscan system (although most do), so the RIAA's number is always going to be higher than what's actually been sold, and the Soundscan number is always going to be slightly lower.

Not to mention that as far as I've been able to tell, the zooming bug only applies to the MIDI interface of Pro Tools - meaning it's not even a problem when it comes to recording any of the live instruments (guitar/bass/drums/piano/vocals). Mike says on his blog that they've been trying to fix the problem for over a month, does anybody REALLY think LP has been sitting at the studio accomplishing absolutely nothing for the last month, waiting for a computer bug to get fixed?

Well when you only release one album, being a "one-hit wonder" really isn't a bad thing. Also, they really need to get their facts straight...Where'd You Go was far from "starting off big," it was actually the 3rd of 4 singles released from the album, almost 5 months after it came out. Where'd You Go peaked at #4, not #2. Remember the Name peaked at #48, not #66.

Both of those song titles (btw, the second one was called "Still Standing") were nothing more than fabricated rumors. No truth to them whatsoever. Timbaland produced the beats on the original versions of Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Big Pimpin', and Jigga What...

When members of the band are totally clueless as to what bonus tracks are being released on various editions of the album, you know you've got a mess on your hands.

No. Just because he can't zoom in doesn't mean he can't record.

3 or 4, depending on how you look at it. The HTEP version, the version that was released on the One Step Closer single, Frat Party, and the Hybrid Theory special edition, and the Reanimation version. The live version is similar to the version on the OSC single, but they added more to it (live drums, additional guitar parts, etc.) and the arrangement is a tad different. I believe the 9-track demo CD is still up on LP:Fuse, but the site isn't working for me right now.

I wouldn't call 5 times out of a 29-show tour "a lot." The band obviously didn't like the song and cut it from several Set B shows even before dropping it altogether following the Toronto show. QWERTY was also played live before it was ever released on an LPU CD, it doesn't really count. Plus when they played it live after releasing the studio version, they didn't even play the studio version live. I will personally send you an entire one of my paychecks if Across the Line is ever played live. I'm that confident that it won't be. Mike will not say anything more than what he's already said about She Couldn't. "Legal reasons" for keeping quiet don't just magically go away. And what don't we know about it anyway? We know about as much about it as any other 1999-early 2000 demo.

Stupid question. Why would a band play a song live that was discarded from an album that came out 2 and a half years ago because they didn't think it was good enough? They haven't played No Roads Left live, they haven't played Announcement Service Public live, they haven't played Dedicated live, they haven't legitimately tried to play A.06 live, they haven't played a full HTEP song live since 2002... Zero possibility of Across the Line ever being performed live, if you ask me. Also, instead of asking Mike about the VMA score, I think it would be better to specifically refer to the LPU promo video when asking about it, "Mike, can you tell us more about the song at the beginning of the new LPU9 promo video and if it will ever see the light of day?" or something like that. We know it's from the VMA score, so that will inevitably be part of his response, but if you ask him about the VMA score, there's a chance he may not even mention the song in question, which is what everybody really wants to know about. Full Rock Am Ring 2010 lineup has already been announced. KISS is headlining Day 1, Muse is headlining Day 2, and Rammstein is headlining Day 3. Same 3 bands are also headlining Rock Im Park. http://www.rock-am-ring.com/

Or maybe they don't play Give Me Your Name live because there are a million vocal tracks on the chorus and nobody in the band to sing them.

Damn, if you still had Guitar Pro I could do a GP tab for you so you'd have the MIDI sounds...what about Powertab?

I'll have to check and see if it works for me later, I've got a Best Buy code that I haven't been able to use, although my account doesn't expire until sometime in April I think, so it's not like I need to rush.

The Best Buy codes don't work for renewals - they haven't since the beginning of LPU8. The only way you can renew with a Best Buy code is if you let your account expire, then renew with the code. It won't work if you still have an active membership. Typical Sparkart glitch that's taken forever to fix.