Liberation List

This is a list of the biggest "liberations" that Linkin Park has done in their career. What does a liberation mean? It means it's when the band plays a song, retires it for a while, and brings it back later to the live show. This list will be updated when a liberation occurs.

As you can see, as of January 2014 there are only:

- Five songs that have been brought back after five years (two instrumental: Session and Wake);

- Two songs that were brought back after three years (one instrumental: Cure For The Itch);

- Three additional ones have been brought back after two years. We also included a few under two years just to show that there really aren't many liberations left for the band that are lengthy. This is good and means that they are doing a good job at rotating the songs that they are incorporating into their setlists!

However, understanding the band's touring breaks is crucial to understanding this list. For example, even though it missed 774 days, Papercut missed only one tour, the Summer Tour in 2009, before it returned in 2010. However, all songs above Papercut missed at least one full touring cycle. Points Of Authority and Somewhere I Belong, for example, both missed the entire A Thousand Suns World Tour (despite both being on leaked setlists for the London 2010 night 2 show). Coming in at number two, Pushing Me Away missed the Meteora touring cycle and returned near the end of the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle. With You missed the entire Minutes To Midnight and A Thousand Suns touring cycles and came back at the start of the LIVING THINGS World Tour.

As of November 2015, there are only twelve songs liberated after 2+ years, so we made our "top ten" list into a "top thirteen" since Cure For The Itch was liberated twice. After Download 2014 (Hybrid Theory in full), a lot changed with the addition of three songs to the list. The new list update has Forgotten and By Myself taking the cake for their one-off performances at Download 2014. Forgotten was an astonishing 12 year liberation while By Myself was a 10 year liberation. And to think that the band worked that hard on rehearsing them, only to play them once!

Here's the list of the top thirteen liberations:

01. Forgotten: 4493 days (12y 3m 21d) (February 24, 2002 - June 14, 2014)

02. By Myself: 3881 days (10y 7m 16d) (October 29, 2003 - June 14, 2014)

03. Session*: 2308 days (6y 3m 2d) (March 25, 2003 - July 19, 2009)

04. Pushing Me Away (Studio Version): 2289 days (6y 3m 5d) (March 2, 2002 - June 7, 2008)

05. Wake**: 2134 days (5y 10m 2d) (March 8, 2008 - January 10, 2014)

06. With You: 2103 days (5y 9m 3d) (August 15, 2006 - May 18, 2012)

07. Runaway: 1839 days (5y 12d) (May 6, 2007 - May 18, 2012)

08. A Place For My Head: 1222 days (3y 4m 5d) (September 11, 2004 - January 16, 2008)

09. Cure For The Itch***: 1018 days (2y 9m 14d) (August 31, 2011 - June 14, 2014)

10. Cure For The Itch***: 1101 days (3y 6d) (August 24, 2008 - August 30, 2011)

11. Points Of Authority: 1000 days (2y 8m 2d) (August 22, 2009 - May 18, 2012)

12. Somewhere I Belong: 1000 days (2y 8m 2d) (August 22, 2009 - May 18, 2012)

13. Papercut: 774 days (2y 1m 13d) (August 24, 2008 - October 7, 2010)

* Session was never played in full. The 2003 version ran about 1:05 and the 2009 version ran about 1:23. The studio version is 2:25.

** Wake's studio version was last played on March 8, 2008, but Wake 2.0 (the remixed live version) remained in the setlists until August 24, 2008 (1965 days until January 10, 2014).

*** Yes, Cure For The Itch was liberated twice. It was technically liberated three times and would probably top the list, but we don't know the date of the LAST performance in the Hybrid Theory era. It likely is the Brixton 2001 show in London. The #10 liberation in the list came from the end of Projekt Revolution 2008 to the performance in Las Vegas in 2011. The #9 liberation in the list is from the day after that to Download 2014. It was brought back for just two shows in August 2011. The performance at Download 2014 was truly the first time it had ever been played in FULL (even though it was slightly different than the studio version), so it was a live debut. The 2007-2008 was a remix version and the 2001 version was a shorter one of the studio version.

While there are only twelve songs liberated after two years (with the two longest being after ten years), the band liberated a few more under one year. These, though, are just shown as examples of why it is almost pointless to keep track of anything liberated after two years. For example, the A Place For My Head liberation listed below was the song actually only missing about five months of actual touring due to the breaks in between tours. A few examples of songs like that are:

Reading My Eyes: 665 days (1y 9m 26d) (August 15, 2006 - June 05, 2008)

A Place For My Head: 579 days (1y 7m 1d) (October 25, 2010 - May 26, 2012)

My December (Piano Version): 480 days (1y 3m 23d) (August 15, 2006 - December 8, 2007)

From The Inside: 446 days (1y 2m 20d) (August 22, 2009 - November 11, 2010)

Note: Songs such as Step Up, Nobody's Listening and It's Goin' Down are not listed here because while they were played in 2002 (Step Up and It's Goin' Down) and 2003 (It's Goin' Down), they were never performed in full again despite all partially appearing in a medley in 2004. The Collision Course LP/JZ songs are also not included because they are only performed with Jay-Z.

[Last Updated]: November 2015 (end of The Hunting Party touring cycle)