The tour in Australia has begun, and we’re looking forward to seeing you guys at the LP Underground Summit in Sydney. This summit will be a one-day event, immediately before the show on Dec 15th. Due to high demand and limited group size, passes are already gone.
For our fans in the US, keep your eyes out for new tour dates and tickets coming out (San Diego, Denver, and Phoenix). All info is at http://www.linkinpark.com/tickets/ …and don’t forget, those tickets have lower prices than retail, AND come with an audio download of that night’s show.
I’m about to leave for Australia; very excited to see you guys this week. In the past few months, we’ve gotten some glowing reviews of the show (The Guardian, Burton Mail, Jerusalem Post, WitsAndNuts, and more)…and we’re thrilled to be bringing that show to our fans down under, where A THOUSAND SUNS has already gone platinum (thanks)! I’m hoping to play some great shows AND get some of my holiday shopping done (unfortunately, I think I’ve already bought enough boomerangs and kangaroo pouches for whoever might want them at home, so I’ll have to come up with better gifts for this year).
Speaking of gifts, our upcoming U.S. concert dates are posted here on LinkinPark.com–just in time for your holiday shopping. (Linkin Park concert tickets make a much better present than that stupid gift card you were going to get, FYI).
After a six-hour delay in the Tel Aviv airport and a long flight, I’m finally home. The last leg of the tour was awesome–a very memorable journey! Some of our best shows in Europe, and our first trip to the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Looking at the comments in the LinkinPark.com forum, a lot of people had an amazing time at the show.
We’ve finally announced that we’re going to be bringing the new show back home, to the U.S. and Canada. Get your tickets now, before anyone else…
Jan 20 Sunrise, FL @ Bank Atlantic Center
Jan 22 Tampa, FL @ St Pete Times Forum
Jan 23 Atlanta, GA @ Phillips Arena
Jan 25 Detroit, MI @ Joe Louis Arena
Jan 26 Chicago, IL @ United Center
Jan 28 Minneapolis, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
Jan 29 Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
Jan 31 Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
Feb 1 Boston, MA @ TD Garden
Feb 4 New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
Feb 7 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
Feb 8 Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre
Feb 10 Washington, DC @ Verizon Center
Feb 11 Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun
With The Prodigy:
Feb 15 Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
Feb 17 Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
Feb 19 Las Vegas, NV @ MGM Grand – Garden Arena
Feb 20 San Diego, CA @ Viejas Arena
Feb 23 Los Angeles, CA @ Staples Center
Feb 25 Salt Lake City, UT @ Energy Solutions Arena
Feb 26 Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
For those of you who are attending The Summit: welcome to London; we hope you have a lot of fun today. After getting settled, there will be a couple Music For Relief projects, and a football (not the American kind) tournament at Hyde Park.
We decided to keep day one simple, since some people are just getting into town–in some cases they’re coming from far away. Some of you are meeting up (in many cases, in person for the first time), and planing your own events around the LPU ones. Great!
Tomorrow will be packed full of events, including opportunities to check out a tour bus, take photos on our stage, win signed stuff, and jam on the band’s instruments. I’m putting this guitar out there for you guys to play:
We’re also going to be sitting down with you guys for a while tomorrow, and we’ll be signing stuff for the entire group.
We hope this is the first of many great events for the new LPUnderground. To join the LPU, go here:
Thanks again to all the great folks who are a part of our live show, both behind the scenes and in the crowd. We appreciate you guys, and were honored to be given the award tonight for “Best Live Act.”
Besides the performance of “Waiting For The End,” which was aired on the show, we played a 60 minute set for the crowd in front of the Puerta De Alcalá tonight. That show will be premiering on MTV in the coming weeks.
The tour is going great so far. Thanks to all the fans attending the shows–they’ve been a lot of fun. Because we had so many new songs and a bunch of new technology (new to us, at least) on stage, we started the tour with one set list, with the intention of switching it up as we got comfortable with it. A few shows later, we began improvising a few parts, swapping songs in and out, and jamming a bit on some things. (For live audio collectors: we made up our current Bleed It Out / APFMH jam a couple days ago in Hamburg, live on the spot. I was pretty excited when it all fell into place, and I think you can hear that on the audio.) If you want to grab mp3s of the songs, go here.
Chester posted about a couple things recently. Firstly, he was really moved about the announcement from Ron Artest (GO LAKERS!) that he was auctioning off his championship ring to fund mental and emotional health services for youths who can afford them. When Chester told me about this, I thought it was awesome…go to ronartest.com (his link is currently down, but I’m sure info will be coming soon).
In more big Chester news, not only did he have a #1 album in the country with “A Thousand Suns,” he’s also in the #1 movie in America this week: Saw 3D opened at the top of the box office charts. Congrats to Chester and the SAW team.
And finally, the LPU Summit is almost here! It’s shaping up to be a great event. If you want to meet the band, play our instruments, tour the backstage, see a tour bus, win signed stuff, and have generally have an awesome time, sign up today. Get an annual LPU member pass, and you’ll get into the Summit for free (not to mention all the awesome stuff you get with annual membership).
Before I go, here was the Bleed It Out / A Place For My Head performance from Hamburg…see you at the show!
The other day I got a chance to record a station for IHeartRadio. It’s an online station where we (Chester and I) get to play whatever we want; we host the show ourselves. The best part was that I got really tired of just hearing myself talk, so I started messing around, calling people and bothering them, and even playing some rare Linkin Park tracks (and I think one Fort Minor one). It’s going to go up some time in October. (I asked some of you to send questions and stories via Twitter; thanks for your help making the show interesting.)
In the days between then and now, I’ve been rehearsing with those other five guys to put a show together. We leave for tour in four days. We’re hitting a few places in South America, A bunch of dates in Europe, and a bunch of dates in Australia (What’s up PERTH and ADELAIDE). Ready for a little bit of this:
