January 20th, 2026 - Abu Dhabi, UAE: From Zero World Tour

Image credit: @radnomadvisuals​

From Zero World Tour continues tonight in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates!

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates and sits on the southeastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula along the Persian Gulf. It is home to just over 4 million people as of the most recent estimates, making it a lively, multicultural city with residents from many different countries. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a country made up of seven emirates, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with a total population of around 11.5 million people as of 2025. Most of these people live in or near the coast, and many are expatriates from around the world.

Just like Bahrain, the country hosts a Formula 1 Grand Prix annually, usually as the closing race of the season; and Linkin Park has played at this event already - waaay back in November 2010. At the time, this was only the band's second show in the Middle East, coming a year after their performance in Istanbul, Turkey. After the then-23-year-old Sebastian Vettel secured the race win, and with it the first of his four world championships, Linkin Park took the stage at the official afterparty and performed a 23-song; 90-minute set heavy on material from the then-recently-released "A Thousand Suns". (Unbelievably,) almost the entire concert was filmed by fans in the audience and is available on YouTube in relatively good quality (for the time) - kudos to the uploader!

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The band opened the 2026 leg of the tour on Sunday night with a show in Bahrain, where they performed a nearly-unchanged Set A from last year. "Points of Authority" and "Crawling" took up the rotation spots in the first act of the set, while "Over Each Other", "LIES GREED MISERY" and "IGYEIH" were performed during the second act - "IGYEIH" replacing "Casualty" in its slot is the only change from the last time Set A was performed. "Stained" and "From the Inside" took up the rotation spots in the final two acts of the show.

Notably, the band played the intro theme of the Netflix hit show Stranger Things before "In The End", likely as a reference to a meme which has been making the rounds on the internet during the past three weeks. If you've been living under a rock - slight spoiler - the final battle of the series features scenery (and CGI quality, for that matter...) similar to that in the now nearly-25-year-old video for "In The End". Check out the performance below; the video also includes "Faint" which closed the show.

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"From the Inside" was another standout performance from the night for me - check out a performance recorded by a fan in the Beyon Al Dana Amphitheater.

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If the band sticks to their usual setlist rotation, Set B should be on the cards for tonight in Abu Dhabi. Are you attending tonights show or one of the upcoming shows on the tour? What are your thoughts on the setlist from Bahrain? Join the discussion in our forums!

Upcoming shows:
January 23, 2026: Bengaluru, India
January 25, 2026: Mumbai, India

 

That damn Stranger Things meme made it this far

.... for all it's worth, it's still the only thing I've seen out of the last season

 

Stranger Things Wiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! They came back in full shape, it seems. From the inside was really really good.