Live In Seoul 2003 is a live DVD release by Linkin Park in March 2023, included in the Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition).
Background
Linkin Park played a whopping 85 shows in 2003, one of their largest touring years ever. After three North American Tours (LP Underground Tour, Projekt Revolution 2003, and Summer Sanitarium) and two European Tours (LP Underground Tour and the August/September run of shows, it was finally time to take Meteora to Australia and Asia. In October 2003, Linkin Park headlined three shows for Livid Festival in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane) around a massive show in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When those four shows wrapped up, they played five packed arenas in Japan and ended the run with a huge stadium show in Seoul, South Korea.
This was Linkin Park's first time ever in South Korea, where Joe Hahn's family is from. Despite playing Australia and Japan in 2001, Linkin Park had not ventured out to any other Asian countries until 2003 and the success of Meteora made it easy to start appearing in the region regularly as they did for the ensuing world tours.
Composition
Setlist-wise, Linkin Park was riding on a high from their Summer Sanitarium Tour and elected to keep that setlist for their shows in Europe, Australia, and Asia. Usually they would debut a brand new setlist to start a tour but this setlist was quite big as they had just filmed their first official live CD/DVD, Live In Texas, with its release coming in November 2003. It made sense to keep that general set around the globe at least once, before they started changing the setlists again.
Two things happened to the setlist once they got to Japan. Due to Linkin Park headlining three nights in Tokyo, their only three night stand in the history of the band (three nights were also scheduled in Tokyo for the One More Light World Tour in fall 2017), they started to spice it up a bit. Night two in Tokyo featured the first performance of "My December" since the last show of Projekt Revolution 2002 over a year and a half earlier. When he walked out for the encore break, Mike said, "We wanted to do something special that we didn't do last night, something different. We haven't played this song in a while so this is kind of a treat for us too." The song stayed in the setlist the last two shows of the tour - night three in Tokyo and Seoul.
And the last show in Tokyo, night three, also had another treat - "Nobody's Listening" appeared for the first time since the last show of Projekt Revolution 2003 in April. On that tour and the following tour after Asia, Linkin Park extended the song. But due to being added at the last second, night three in Tokyo was actually the first time the studio version of the song was played with no extensions on it. And to close the tour at the huge stadium show, Seoul was treated to both "My December" and "Nobody's Listening", giving the third Tokyo show and Seoul the longest setlists of the band's career thus far.
Release
The Meteora 20 release was announced on January 27, 2023 for a release date of March 24, 2003. Live In Seoul 2003 was included on the second DVD alongside Veterans Stadium 2003.
Brad Delson said about the show when discussing the box set, "I think what's great about this box set is that it shows the evolution of the concerts: when the album came out, we did this concert (Nottingham) for our LP Underground fans. Then we found ourselves in a stadium playing with our heroes, Metallica. I think it's cool to have the whole development documented and to be able to share it with others. We have become an international band. UK, Europe, Asia - we have "Live in Seoul" in the package which was Joe's first show in Korea. Ultimately we went from being a California band to an international band. I'm not saying that like "oh the music was released in many different countries", but because we were in many different places and many countries all the time and had a constant connection with the fans."[1]
Track Listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Don't Stay | Linkin Park | |
| 2 | Somewhere I Belong | Linkin Park | |
| 3 | Lying From You | Linkin Park | |
| 4 | Papercut | Bennington Chester Charles, Bourdon Robert G, Delson Brad, Hahn Joseph, Shinoda Mike | |
| 5 | Points of Authority | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda | |
| 6 | Runaway | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda, Wakefield Mark | |
| 7 | Faint | Linkin Park | |
| 8 | From The Inside | Linkin Park | |
| 9 | Figure.09 | Linkin Park | |
| 10 | Nobody's Listening | Linkin Park | |
| 11 | With You | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, King John Robert, Shinoda, Simpson Michael | |
| 12 | By Myself | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda | |
| 13 | P5hng Me A*wy | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda, Stephen Richards | |
| 14 | Numb | Linkin Park | |
| 15 | Crawling | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda | |
| 16 | In The End | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda | |
| 17 | My December | Shinoda | |
| 18 | A Place For My Head | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda, Wakefield | |
| 19 | One Step Closer | Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda |
Personnel
Linkin Park
- Chester Bennington: Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
- Mike Shinoda: Vocals, Rhythm Guitar
- Brad Delson: Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals
- Dave "Phoenix" Farrell: Bass Guitar
- Joseph Hahn: Turntables, Sampling, Programming
- Rob Bourdon: Drums