Live In Nottingham 2003

Live in Nottingham 2003 is a live audio release on digital platforms and vinyl by Linkin Park in March 2023, included in the Meteora (20th Anniversary Edition).

Background

The touring cycle for Linkin Park's Meteora album began in late February 2003, when they kicked off a special Linkin Park Underground Tour for fan club members in Milan, Italy. The LPU Tour was the band's way of starting back in clubs, getting their new songs warmed up properly after almost a full year off, and treating their most diehard fans to an intimate concert. The last shows Linkin Park had played came on the tail end of "Projekt Revolution 2002" in early 2002 before they immediately hit the studio to finish up their remix album and head to NRG Studios to work on what eventually became their second studio album.

In press interviews for the tour, band members expressed their appreciation for the LPU and Linkin Park fans for skyrocketing them to new levels on the coattails of the Hybrid Theory album. Tickets to the LPU Tour were free for LPU members, and additional tickets that were not claimed by the LPU for several shows were sold to the general public at the last minute for a low price.

The tour took Linkin Park from Italy to Germany, where they made up a canceled show from September 11, 2001 in Hamburg, over to Paris, and then to a week in England where they played two normal shows in London and Manchester, two TV appearances for CD:UK/Headliners and Top of the Pops, and played a secret show in Nottingham.

Throughout the band's time in the UK and on the tour, they filmed and hosted an episode of MTV2's "Linkin Park Faves" where they showed their favorite music videos at the time along with giving an exclusive glimpse into the tour. Some of this footage was used on LPTV's LP Underground 2003 Tour episode.

Composition

Linkin Park debuted a setlist on the LP Underground Tour that encompassed most of the Meteora album along with their favorites from Hybrid Theory. Songs that did not make it into the setlist that were rehearsed include "By Myself" from the debut album and "Breaking The Habit", which was a track rehearsed and in the original setlist draft before the tour started between "Faint" and "From The Inside." "Breaking The Habit" ended up not being played until October 2003, because it was such an emotionally hard track for Chester to get through as evidenced by his emotion on the first performance of it, ironically in the pouring rain at Smoke Out Festival.

The show for the LPU run kicked off with a shortened version of "Session" to use as the show intro right into the first three songs on Meteora - "Don't Stay" (with "Foreword" attached), "Somewhere I Belong", and "Lying From You." From there, the band just traded runs of new songs followed by old songs repeatedly. "Papercut", "Points Of Authority" and "Runaway" gave way to "Faint", "From The Inside", and "Hit The Floor." After that, a newer version of "With You" debuted that featured the Reanimation instrumental in the verses of the track, with Mike and Chester almost always introducing the song as a "Reanimation-style" version. "Crawling" came next and had a short version of the "Krwlng" intro to start the song, as another nod to the Reanimation album, before "In The End" closed the main set. For the encore, the slower-paced "Easier To Run" welcomed the band back to the stage, similar to the quieter "My December" encore opener on the 2002 tour. And of course, the fan-favorites "A Place For My Head" and "One Step Closer" closed the show. And in their final nod to their remix album, "One Step Closer" was played with a fan-favorite "Reanimated bridge" that stuck around for the entire Meteora touring cycle and even into 2006.

LPU Tour 2003 Setlist

It was semi-unique that at the beginning and middle of the Meteora touring cycle, the band separated "With You" and "Runaway", two songs that had stuck together for a lot of their time in the setlists over the years. "Hit The Floor" and "Easier To Run" both did not stick around very long - both songs were only performed on the LPU Tour and the ensuing Projekt Revolution 2003 Tour before being dropped forever. In the years that went by, members of Linkin Park didn't hold back in their dislike of "Easier To Run" and several times mentioned that it was the collectively least favorite song of the entire group.

Fortunately for Linkin Park fans, the second and third shows of the tour in Hamburg and Paris were recorded in pretty good audience recording quality by attendees of the show, giving everyone a glimpse into the new show and new songs. However, before the fan recordings were able to be posted online, Linkin Park made made their way to England to close out the European run of shows for the LPU Tour before they took the intimate club run over to the United States.

Nottingham was the very first stop on this run. For the first England show, BBC Radio 1 had the band play a private concert. It was advertised in the "UK Week" promotion to LP Underground members where the LPU offered tickets to Nottingham, London, Top Of The Pops, Manchester, and CD:UK/Headliners. The Nottingham show was "event #2" on the list with no description (no date, time or location), but LPU members were allowed to enter for tickets and if they won, they were notified of the date, location, etc of the show. A small Meet and Greet with the band was held before the show, but the LPU'ers were encouraged to enter to win Meet and Greets's for other shows in the UK that week, presumably to not fill up the Nottingham Meet and Greet with a lot of fans. To gain admission to the show, fans either won tickets from the LP Underground or via BBC Radio 1.

The announcement of the show by BBC said, "To celebrate the launch of their incredible new album 'Meteora', Linkin Park will be playing a gig exclusively for Radio 1 at Nottingham's Rock City Monday 3rd March. Lamacq Live on March 3rd will bring you a Linkin Park Special with a headline set, backstage interviews & review live from Nottingham. All this week Jo Whiley, Lamacq Live, the Rock Show and Colin Murray will be giving away tickets on air on BBC RADIO 1. Your last chance to get hold of a pair of tickets to the gig will be on Saturday March 1st during Scott Mills show when Colin Murray will be roaming the streets of Nottingham looking for deserving fans to give the few remaining tickets away."

So, due to the radio broadcast of most of the concert (without "Session", "Hit The Floor", and "Easier To Run"), the public was able to hear for the first time the brand new songs the band had been working on for so long for their second album. "Don't Stay", "Lying From You", "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", and "From the Inside" were all included in the broadcast and were the world's first sneak peek into Linkin Park's new record. For many years, the BBC Radio 1 recording of the show's broadcast was considered a fan favorite. The show specifically features a lot of commentary from Chester Bennington between songs, who was notably having a very bad day before the show but had his mood turned around by the loud and rowdy crowd that night as he described between songs.

The BBC review of the show read, "Linkin Park performed at Rock City in Nottingham last night (Monday), despite the lead singer hurting his hand just minutes before going on stage. There were about 1000 fans there and the band played tracks from their new album 'Meteora' due out later this month. Chester Bennington, the lead singer, took his shirt off to show off his skinny tattooed body - much to the approval of the girls in the crowd. Ten minutes before the gig he punched the dressing room wall and badly bruised his hand. He had to keep an ice pack on it but told us he wasn't fazed by his injury. "My hand doesn't matter, you can cut it off for all I care. As long as my voice works. If I lost all feeling from my neck down, if you could string me up and I could sing, I'd be there doing the shows. The fans come first and the shows come first too and that's all that matters to us. We really don't care about anything else except for the music and the kids.""

Release

The Meteora 20 release was announced on January 27, 2023 for a release date of March 24, 2003. In a unique move, Linkin Park released Live in Nottingham 2003 on vinyl for their first ever live show vinyl release.

This was the first time the show was released in any form, but also the first time it had been heard in full by fans as the broadcast in 2003 removed "Session", "Hit The Floor", and "Easier To Run."

Brad Delson said about the show's release, "That was one of the first shows we played as part of this album cycle. I think the fans only heard parts of it but never the whole show. 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 for our LP Underground fans. Then we found ourselves in a stadium playing with Metallica, our heroes. Well, Nottingham, I think we were finding our role as headliners, which is really hard. How do you become a headliner? You can't fake anything there. Even if you're having your big moment and you're the biggest pop star in the world right now: good luck. One song, three songs is not enough to sustain interest for 90 minutes. On "Hybrid Theory", which is 37 minutes long, we played in arenas at the end of the touring cycle, headlining. We asked the promoters, "How long is our slot?" and they said, "90 minutes." – "Okay, we're going to play each song three times", ha. "Meteora" was also a gift for us because we could put our feet on solid ground and say: "This time we can even do 60 minutes!" I think it's cool to have the whole development documented and to be able to share it with others."

On the unboxing video for Meteora|20, Mike said Nottingham was a show the band thought was one of their best at the time and was also unreleased in full.

Track Listing

Side	No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
A	1	Session	Linkin Park	1:14
	2	Don't Stay		3:16
	3	Somewhere I Belong		3:37
	4	Lying From You		3:40
	5	Papercut		3:06
B	1	Points Of Authority		3:26
	2	Runaway		3:53
	3	Faint		2:47
	4	From The Inside		2:56
C	1	Hit The Floor		3:18
	2	With You		3:45
	3	Crawling		4:00
	4	In The End		4:30
D	1	Easier To Run		4:05
	2	A Place For My Head		3:58
	3	One Step Closer		4:04

Personnel

Linkin Park

• Chester Bennington: Vocals
• Rob Bourdon: Drums
• Brad Delson: Guitars
• Joseph Hahn: Records, Sampling
• "Phoenix: Bass
• Mike Shinoda: Emcee, Vocals, Sampling

Production

• All Songs Written by Linkin Park | ©2002 Universal Music
• Except "Papercut," "Points Of Authority," "Crawling," "In The End" and "One Step Closer" Written by Linkin Park ©2000
• "Runaway" Written by Linkin Park & Mark Wakefield ©2000
• "With You" Written by Linkin Park & The Dust Brothers (M. Simpson/J. King) ©2000
• "A Place For My Head" Written by Linkin Park, Mark Wakefield & Dave Farrell ©2000
• Mixed by Ethan Mates
• Pro Tools Editor: Bo Bodnar
• Recorded for Lamacq Live on BBC Radio One
• Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, CA
• Recorded Live March 3rd 2003 at Rock City in Nottingham, UK
• Licensed Courtesy of BBC Studios

Gallery

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  Vinyl cover

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  Radio broadcast internal CD. Scan by StaticXero.

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  Radio broadcast internal CD. Scan by StaticXero.

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  Actual Nottingham 2003 setlist (from magazine review)

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  LPU Tour 2003 setlist (from Wiltern LA shows)