Linkin Park laid the foundations for modern metal with their 2000 debut Hybrid Theory. They weren’t the first band to bring together rock, hip-hop, electronic music and a whole lot of angst – but they were the most successful. Throughout the 2000s and beyond, the band continued to toy with genre and pack out arenas but were always at their best when they married pristine production with something more human. A lot of that heart came from vocalist Chester Bennington, whose ability to deliver vulnerability and sheer ferocity gave Linkin Park a unique edge. His death in 2017 was a huge loss for fans and the scene as a whole.
For years, the remaining members of the band avoided questions about the future but kept the Linkin Park fire burning with anniversary celebrations for Hybrid Theory and its even-bigger follow-up Meteora. Then a few weeks ago, they announced a surprise return. Rather than trade in nostalgia, the California band came back armed with new music and a new singer. There’s been plenty of chatter online about Emily Armstrong, from her ties to Scientology and her – now apparently retracted – defence of actor and convicted rapist Danny Masterson, to her ability to live up to Bennington’s imposing legend. But on stage at least, she’s the perfect fit for what the band are describing as their “new chapter”.
“The fact you guys have been in our corner with the new stuff is huge,” de facto leader Mike Shinoda tells the crowd at London’s O2. It’s the only time in the two-hour set that they acknowledge that anything has changed. There’s no tribute to Bennington, but a reflective Leave Out All the Rest feels especially poignant. Instead, Linkin Park are determined to celebrate a legacy that’s still growing.
Performing on a custom stage in the middle of the venue, the entire show is incredibly polished and designed for huge rooms, but the rugged emotion behind the music is never watered down. Armstrong makes each Linkin Park classic her own without changing their shape, from the hulking Given Up and its screaming breakdown to the raw beauty of Breaking the Habit.
Despite the weight of expectation, there’s also a real playfulness here. Armstrong gets in the crowd for In the End; the band’s DJ and creative director Joe Hahn takes great joy in pointing a handheld camera in his bandmates’ faces throughout the night; and Shinoda shares inside jokes from the group’s Discord with 20,000 people. That excitable energy is matched by the influx of evidently new, young fans who’ve discovered the band in the seven years they’ve been away. Linkin Park have an impressive history but for the first time in a long while, the future looks bright.
