June 05, 2026 - Nürburg, Germany | Rock am Ring 2026

Original image by @amigoandco​

Linkin Park are heading back to one of the most recognizable festival settings in their touring history, returning to Rock am Ring for the first time since 2014 to perform this Friday. Despite several appearances in Germany on the From Zero World Tour over the past year and a half—including Hamburg as their third arena show and first international stop after their September 5 comeback—this is the first time the band has headlined a German festival since the twin Hurricane and Southside festivals in 2017 for the One More Light World Tour.

Their return has been highly anticipated since the bombastic reveal during the festival’s 2025 edition. During Rock am Ring’s 40th-anniversary weekend in June 2025, Linkin Park were revealed as the first headliner for the 2026 festival, accompanied by a fireworks and laser show in front of the crowd. Rock am Ring took to social media and described the announcement as a “Gänsehautmoment für die Geschichtsbücher”—literally, a goosebumps moment for the history books. The announcement was also made exactly 21 years after the band’s 2004 performance at the festival, adding to the sense of occasion.

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That early announcement quickly turned into one of the strongest sales in the festival’s history. Rock am Ring 2026 sold out all 90,000 weekend tickets by October 2025, earlier than any previous edition of the festival.

Rock am Ring itself has been a major fixture in European rock and metal since 1985, originally launching at the Nürburgring racing complex site before becoming one of Germany’s defining festival brands. The event now runs alongside its twin festival, Rock im Park, in Nürnberg (Nuremburg), where Linkin Park will also be headlining for that festival’s final night. Linkin Park are anchored as a heavyweight top-billed act for these twin festivals alongside Iron Maiden and Volbeat, accompanied by additional headliners Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, Bad Omens, Electric Callboy, Sabaton, and the Offspring.

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For Linkin Park fans, the festival carries extra weight because it has caught the band at several junctions in their career, and 2026 now adds the current lineup to that festival history. Their Rock am Ring appearances span the early Hybrid Theory explosion, the Meteora era, the Minutes to Midnight transition, the LIVING THINGS cycle, and the heavier push of The Hunting Party. This 2026 return will be another new chapter in a long-running festival relationship with Rock am Ring. With Linkin Park’s resurgence, fans have also been spreading footage of the band’s early Rock am Ring performances across social media, adding to the excitement around their return after 12 years.

Linkin Park first appeared at Rock am Ring in 2001, when Hybrid Theory was still transforming them from a fast-rising debut act into one of the biggest rock bands of the decade. That early Rock am Ring performance was built around the band’s debut album, with extras such as “And One” from the Hybrid Theory EP and B-side “High Voltage.” The band’s biggest staples such as “Papercut,” “Crawling,” “In the End,” “A Place for My Head,” and “One Step Closer” locked down the backbone of that show.

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Two special moments from the 2001 set are also worth highlighting. The first, and more legendary among the Linkin Park fandom, was a short interlude performed between “Pushing Me Away” and “And One.” This performance was a point of speculation for 19 years, and a prevailing theory was finally confirmed in 2020 with the release of the Hybrid Theory 20th anniversary edition—the short interlude was actually a performance of the Xero-era demo “Pictureboard,” which made it to the Hybrid Theory recording sessions before finally being cut. “Pictureboard,” long hinted at but eluding fans for over a decade since its first mention by Mike Shinoda, was under fans’ noses the entire time, performed three times in sequential order in 2001 (Rock im Park, Rock am Ring, and the first Ozzfest date) before disappearing.

Linkin Park’s “Pictureboard” interlude using elements of the verses, leading into “And One.” One of only three known performances of “Pictureboard” as Linkin Park.​

The other special inclusion was a short tease of the Guns n’ Roses hit “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” one of its only known performances. The band would use several different songs in this general slot throughout 2001 as their live show coalesced, including “Jane Says” by Jane's Addiction and Chester’s own song “Morning After.” The band used this Guns n’ Roses cover as a bridge into their closing number, “One Step Closer.”

The band performs a short interlude of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and then launches into “One Step Closer.”​

Linkin Park’s 2004 Rock am Ring set also remains among the band’s most widely remembered performances, capturing the band near the height of the Meteora era. At that point, Linkin Park were no longer the new band climbing up festival posters. They were near the top of the mountain, with Hybrid Theory and Meteora both firmly established and songs like “Somewhere I Belong,” “Lying from You,” “Faint,” “Numb,” “Breaking the Habit,” and “From the Inside” now sitting comfortably in their live repertoire.

Footage of “Breaking the Habit” at Rock am Ring 2004, posted by prolific Linkin Park live footage trader and archivist Felipe.​

Also included in the setlist was a hip-hop medley with the band’s songs “Step Up” and “Nobody’s Listening” alongside the X-Ecutioners collaboration “It’s Goin’ Down.” Then to close out the setlist, the band brought out “Crawling”—featuring the strings intro from its Reanimation version; a cover of the Nine Inch Nails song “Wish”; and “One Step Closer,” with the Reanimation ambient intro and breakdown bridge.

Linkin Park’s cover of “Wish” by Nine Inch Nails was a staple of their 2004 touring year, as seen here at Rock am Ring 2004.​

The band returned to Rock am Ring after a slower 2005 and 2006, for their next full touring year in 2007, headlining the festival for the first time. As the then-recently released Minutes to Midnight had moved Linkin Park into new sonic territory, Rock am Ring received an early look at how that material would function on festival stages. Songs like “Given Up,” “Leave Out All the Rest,” “Bleed It Out,” “No More Sorrow,” and “The Little Things Give You Away” brought a new pacing to the set, mixing heavier moments with more spacious arrangements. The band opened with the extended bridge-riff rendition of “One Step Closer” known as the “Gunshot Intro” for its gunshot samples, then proceeded through a set nearly evenly divided between their three studio albums at the time, with Meteora just edging out Hybrid Theory and Minutes to Midnight.

The addition of Minutes to Midnight’s “No More Sorrow” brought a different kind of heaviness to their Rock am Ring 2007 set, compared with the offerings of their first two albums.​

Another standout of this era included in the setlist was the piano rendition of “Pushing Me Away,” leading straight into a piano-opened performance of “Breaking the Habit.” The encore set for this show consisted of the momentous album closer “The Little Things Give You Away,” “Bleed It Out” with the very first rendition of an extended bridge—a staple to this day—and “Faint” with an extended outro, including a guitar solo by Brad.

“Faint” closes the band’s 2007 performance at Rock am Ring, complete with an extended outro, including a solo by Brad Delson.​

Linkin Park did not appear at Rock am Ring during the A Thousand Suns cycle, but returned in short order for LIVING THINGS, before the album’s release date later that month. With the album on the horizon and “BURN IT DOWN” making its way across the still-active rock radio airwaves, Linkin Park opened with a blistering run of “A Place for My Head,” “Given Up,” “Faint,” “With You,” “Runaway,” and “From the Inside” before finally settling in for its first marginally lower-octane number, “Somewhere I Belong.” Alongside “BURN IT DOWN,” the band also performed “LIES GREED MISERY,” only its fourth performance ever after being officially leaked through LPAssociation following a global scavenger hunt just a week prior.

Despite being a non-single and the album being several weeks out, “LIES GREED MISERY” was played at Rock am Ring 2012 alongside lead single “BURN IT DOWN,” giving attendees a taste of the upcoming LIVING THINGS.​

Linkin Park returned again in 2014, with The Hunting Party just under two weeks out from release. As with 2012, the setlist offered an early look at the upcoming album, with the band previewing some of its new material including “Guilty All the Same” and “Wastelands.” With five albums under their belt and one imminent, Linkin Park had to work to compress their already packed setlist into an even shorter format, making room for more than a decade of hits. This meant juggling shortened versions of older Hybrid Theory and Meteora numbers such as “Points of Authority” with some of their more recent singles of the 2010s, like “BURN IT DOWN,” “A LIGHT THAT NEVER COMES,” or “Waiting for the End.”

Linkin Park used the intro sequence from 2010’s A Thousand Suns to lead into the setlist opener for Rock am Ring 2014: lead single for The Hunting Party “Guilty All the Same.”​

Also included in this setlist were solo sets by Mike and Joe, setlist highlights that have since returned with the From Zero era. While Mike’s current solo set bears some resemblance to 2014, Joe’s set from 2014 was much more focused on bringing together samples from across the band’s repertoire in one place.

Mike performs a shortened “Robot Boy” before leading into a DJ solo set by Joe. Joe’s DJ set included samples from across the entire Linkin Park discography, notably opening with elements from “Session” and a scratch sample used on “Don’t Stay.”​

Now in 2026, Linkin Park will come to Rock am Ring for the first time in 12 years, making their first appearance at the festival with Emily Armstrong and Colin Brittain. The Friday schedule, with Linkin Park as its centerpiece, gives the top portion of the lineup a particularly turn-of-the-millennium overtone among the newer rock and metal acts. Papa Roach are scheduled before Linkin Park on the Utopia Stage, while Limp Bizkit, Bush, and the Hives also help place the night within the broader late-’90s and early-2000s rock revival that has been surging in recent years.

Linkin Park’s 95-minute festival slot will still require some tightening compared with their full arena show, but their festival sets have been well-received throughout the past several tour legs. The band’s 2026 setlists have continued rotating songs and intros across the From Zero World Tour, anchored by From Zero breakouts such as “The Emptiness Machine” and “Heavy Is the Crown.” The band surprised fans by removing “Somewhere I Belong” from its opening position in Stockholm, a move echoing the way they opened their launch show in September 2024.

“The Emptiness Machine” opens the band’s recent show in Stockholm, Sweden, replacing “Somewhere I Belong,” used for the previous 83 shows of the tour.​

They then further flipped the script by opening with Meteora’s “Lying from You” for the first time ever for night one in Hamburg, before returning to “The Emptiness Machine” on night two.

“Lying from You” gets its first shot at opening a Linkin Park concert, for Hamburg night one.​

The other major developments of this Europe leg so far have been the return of “Breaking the Habit” and “LOST IN THE ECHO,” both of which had not been performed since the band’s headlining shows in São Paulo, Brazil, in November 2024. “LOST IN THE ECHO” was played in Stockholm, while “Breaking the Habit” has been paired at the Europe 2026 shows with a shortened piano rendition of “Lost,” as it was in 2024—a change from the band’s hybrid performances of “Lost” that debuted with the first show of 2025 and had been performed since.

“LOST IN THE ECHO” is performed at 3Arena in Stockholm, the the first performance since November 2024 for São Paulo night one.​

The band may return “Somewhere I Belong” to its opener position and begin rotating the slot—or they may continue with “The Emptiness Machine” for Rock am Ring. With “Leave Out All the Rest” having been performed in Sydney this past March, only two songs from the initial 2024 arena run have not returned to the band’s setlist since: “Friendly Fire” and “My December.” However, for Rock am Ring, it seems unlikely that either will be brought in, if they are still in the plans at all. Other wild cards could include another “LOST IN THE ECHO” performance or potentially another rare appearance of “Keys to the Kingdom,” which resurfaces with no clear regularity. It was last performed for Melbourne night two in March.

The last performance of The Hunting Party album opener “Keys to the Kingdom,” for Linkin Park’s second night in Melbourne this past March.​

Linkin Park will perform on the Utopia Stage at the Nürburgring in Nürburg, Germany, on Friday, June 5, with their set currently scheduled from 22:55 to 00:30. LPAssociation member @Michele will be in attendance at this show after being there for 2025’s special announcement before Bring Me the Horizon’s set. He also helped put together this tour post for us! Stay hydrated and have fun! We eagerly await your report on the band’s return to the Rock am Ring circuit.

For the rest of us at home, we will have a better chance to follow along than we’ve had for many other shows this tour cycle. Rock am Ring and Telekom announced a renewed partnership for 2026, with both main stages set to stream live and free through MagentaMusik and MagentaTV. The band has confirmed this will include Linkin Park’s set, so be sure to tune in!

If you’re attending Rock am Ring and seeing Linkin Park, be sure to visit our official LPA Meetup Thread and let others (especially Michele!) know! We’d also love for you to send any pictures or videos from the show our way @LPAssociation on Instagram and Twitter. Whether you're attending or not, come and discuss the show in our forums!

Remaining shows:
June 07, 2026: Nuremberg, Germany - Rock im Park 2026
June 09, 2026: Vienna, Austria
June 11, 2026: Munich, Germany
June 12, 2026: Munich, Germany
June 14, 2026: Castle Donington, UK - Download Festival 2026
June 16, 2026: Lyon, France
June 19, 2026: Santiago de Compostela, Spain - O Son do Camiño 2026
June 21, 2026: Lisbon, Portugal - Rock in Rio: Lisboa 2026
June 23, 2026: Madrid, Spain
June 24, 2026: Madrid, Spain
June 26, 2026: Florence, Italy - Firenze Rocks 2026
June 28, 2026: Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter Festival 2026
June 30, 2026: Zürich, Switzerland

 

Rock Am Ring 2004 is their best concert ever!

 

Hit me up

 

View from the legend @Michele. Looks like he'll get a good view of the show tonight.

 

Bring back the dogman !

 

Great work on the write up @Christøffer

(Ignore I only read half of it bc my head is throbbing) I'll try to watch despite being sick

 

Update from the legend



You lucky motherfucker @Michele

 

With youuu????? Wiiiiiiiiiii

ps: is it me or the realization doesn’t barely show Alex?

 

@Michele I hate youuuu so much right nowwwwww