Tonight, Linkin Park's From Zero tour comes to Kansas City, MO. The band will playing at T-Mobile Center, an 18,000-capacity arena, with Jean Dawson playing the opening slot. Linkin Park has performed in Kansas City a handful of times, mostly earlier in their touring history. The band first played there in late 2000 while playing support on P.O.D.'s Kings of the Game tour, having released Hybrid Theory a month earlier. This show was on November 22 at the Beaumont Club, a small Kansas bar venue which closed down in 2013. Linkin Park returned to Kansas City a month later while supporting Papa Roach on their Master Bay tour, which closed out their 2000 touring schedule. This tour made a stop at the city's historic Uptown Theater on December 11 for a show which doubled as a Christmas event called 98.9 The Rock's Twisted Christmas, for Kansas-based rock radio station 98.9 The Rock. The next time Linkin Park performed in Kansas City was almost a year later, on November 27, 2001, playing their own show at the 5,000-seat Hale Arena with support from (hed)p.e., The Apex Theory and The X-Ecutioners. This date was the first in a short U.S. tour leg the band headlined which came to be known as Countdown to Revolution - per its name, it directly preceded the early 2002 Projekt Revolution festival tour masterminded by Linkin Park. The band played "With You", "Runaway" and "Papercut" to start the set off. The rest of the setlist covered every song from Hybrid Theory except "Cure for the Itch" (Mr. Hahn did still get a solo moment during the encore portion), as well as non-album songs like the B-side "High Voltage", the 1999 Hybrid Theory EP cut "Step Up", and "My December". The night after, November 28, the band had another show in state of Missouri, at The Family Arena in St. Charles. Linkin Park didn't stop in Kansas City again after that 2001 date for ten years. Their next show there was on January 29, 2011, when they performed at 18,000-capacity Sprint Center as part of the A Thousand Suns North American leg which they kicked off that year with. Setting the tone for the headliners at this show were drum & bass crossover maestros Pendulum, and dance-punk misfits Does It Offend You, Yeah?. For this show, Linkin Park used a setlist identical to the one from the night prior in St. Paul, MN, starting off with "Papercut" after the "Requiem" intro, closing the main set with "One Step Closer" and "Bleed It Out" (incorporating parts from Hybrid Theory favourite "A Place for My Head"), and ending the encore segment with "New Divide" and "Faint". Alongside these dates where Linkin Park performed in Kansas City, they've also performed a few times in the nearby city of Bonner Springs, KS over the years (the state of Kansas essentially shares part of Kansas City with Missouri), each time at the same amphitheater venue now known as Azura Amphitheater. In 2001, they were part of 2001's Ozzfest line-up, which made a stop at the Bonner Springs venue, at the time called Sandstone Amphitheater, on June 19. There, the band reportedly performed a 9-song set comprising every song from Hybrid Theory except for "Cure for the Itch" and "Pushing Me Away". Years later, Linkin Park returned to the amphitheater in Bonner Springs as a headline act for the 2004 edition of Projekt Revolution, by which point the venue had been renamed Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. The band's setlists at this stage included various Hybrid Theory songs augmented with elements from their Reanimation counterparts, most notably "With You" and "One Step Closer" - Korn frontman Jonathan Davis, who appeared on the Reanimation version of "One Step Closer", joined Linkin Park on-stage to perform his parts from the remix live on many dates throughout the tour, including this Bonner Springs show. The setlist also featured Meteora deep cut "Figure.09", a "Step Up" / "Nobody's Listening" / "It's Goin' Down" medley, and a cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Wish", from 1992's Broken EP. In the midst of 2008's Projekt Revolution run, Linkin Park played at the amphitheater once again on August 13 - this time, its name had actually been changed back to Sandstone Amphitheater - for a show which was actually not part of the festival tour and, as such, did not feature the full line-up of acts. Supporting Linkin Park at this show were Ashes Divide (a band fronted by A Perfect Circle member Billy Howerdel) and Atreyu, both on the 2008 Projekt Revolution line-up. Ahead of Linkin Park's headline set, band member Chester Bennington appeared on-stage with Ashes Divide and helped to perform "The Outsider", a song from A Perfect Circle's 2003 sophomore album Thirteenth Step. Not surprisingly, Linkin Park's set at this event was one of the rotated setlists they were using during Projekt Revolution. It started off with an instrumental intro segment performed by Street Drum Corps, leading into the opening song "One Step Closer" (although they were part of the 2008 Projekt Revolution bill, SDC not perform their own set at this particular show). The percussion act re-appeared to assist during the bridge of "Bleed It Out", the final song in the set, which was also introduced with a drum solo by Rob Bourdon. Earlier in the set, during the extended intro for "Points of Authority", Mike Shinoda delivered a verse from his Fort Minor single "Petrified", off 2005's The Rising Tied; he then rapped a verse from the Rising Tied B-side "There They Go" for the song's extended ending. 14 years following their last show in Kansas City, Linkin Park is returning to play a headline show in the city, one of many places on this U.S. tour leg that haven't seen a Linkin Park show in well over a decade. The band's most recent show at the CHI Health Center Omaha arena in Omaha, NE (natch) saw them playing a set which included some older highlights like the re-appraised LIVING THINGS cut "LIES GREED MISERY" and Hybrid Theory fan-favourite "A Place for My Head" (taking a spot where "From the Inside" would normally have been played), as well as From Zero songs "Casualty" and "Over Each Other". Mike Shinoda also took a request from a very young Linkin Park fan to perform a verse from "Step Up" during the extended middle section of his "When They Come for Me" / "Remember the Name" medley, and even pretended that he might not remember it all: During the extended bridge of "Bleed It Out", Shinoda delivered a verse from "There They Go": And, apparently, more and more band members are helping out Mr. Hahn with the intro for "In the End": After tonight's show at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, MO, Linkin Park will continue on their From Zero U.S. leg with a show at Ball Arena in Denver, CO on September 3. What do you think Linkin Park will play at tonight's show? Let us know!
I actually forgot to throw this in, but that happened at a few dates throughout that tour leg, specifically on all the "off-day" shows and, then, the final Projekt Revolution date too. Chester also guested on "Hunger Strike" during Chris Cornell's set (with Cornell then appearing for "Crawling" during LP's set) on most of the proper Projekt Revolution tour dates, and that final date on the 2008 Projekt Revolution tour was the only one where he sang on both "The Outsider" and "Hunger Strike".
SETLIST: - ACT 1 (Inception Intro B) - 01: Somewhere I Belong 02: Crawling 03: Up from the Bottom 04: Lying From You 05: The Emptiness Machine - ACT 2 (Creation Intro B) - 06: The Catalyst - Shortened (no third chorus; no breakdown) 07: BURN IT DOWN 08: Cut the Bridge - Short moscow intro 09: Where'd You Go - Shortened (intro, first verse, and first chorus only) 10: Waiting for the End - 2024 intro 11: CASTLE OF GLASS - with Jean Dawson 12: Two Faced 13: Joe Solo - with Colin 14: Mike Solo Medley - "When They Come for Me" both verses, & "Remember the Name" mashup; with Colin 15: Given Up 16: One Step Closer - 2024 intro & outro - ACT 3 (Collapse Transition) - 17: Lost - Hybrid version 18: Good Things Go 19: What I've Done - ACT 4 (Kintsugi Transition) - 20: Overflow 21: Numb - "Numb / Encore" intro 22: Let You Fade 23: Heavy Is the Crown 24: Bleed It Out - Extended bridge with 'A Place for My Head' verse 1; extended outro - ACT 5 - Encore (Resolution Intro B) - 25: Papercut - Extended intro 26: In the End 27: Faint - Extended outro
I remember "The Outsider" performance featuring Chester. Song became a favorite of mine those days. Good old days.
I think basically every time I heard Chester sing something that wasn't an LP or DBS song, that's when I was really in awe of his talent. When I first heard him covering "Highway to Hell" or "Rolling in the Deep", or guesting on "Hunger Strike" or "The Outsider", each time, it properly struck me in those moments how amazing he was