A Thousand Suns+

A Thousand Suns+ is an international live DVD release by Linkin Park in 2011 titled Live From Madrid. The DVD (packaged with the normal A Thousand Suns CD) combo was released at varying times in spring and summer 2011 during the A Thousand Suns World Tour and features songs performed from Hybrid Theory, Meteora, Minutes To Midnight, A Thousand Suns, as well as single "New Divide".

Background

Linkin Park kicked off the A Thousand Suns World Tour in September 2010, performing a release show in New York City amongst other promotional performances. The first leg of the tour took them to South America in October for three shows before they jumped right over to Europe at the end of October 2010.

Near the end of the fifteen show tour across Europe, Linkin Park flew to Madrid, Spain on an off day between headlining dates in England to perform at the famous Puerta de Alcalá landmark in Madrid for the MTV Europe Music Awards. At first, the show was rumored to just be a one song performance of "Waiting For The End", but the band ended up performing a full show without any prior announcement to fans.

Writing and Recording

Show setlist

A Thousand Suns+ features a full set of eighteen professionally mixed and mastered songs from the band's show in Madrid.

Before the show, Linkin Park performed an extended soundcheck which was done in front of fans who had arrived hours before the show, a rare move for Linkin Park at the time. Fans were treated to the first portion of the setlist during the soundcheck as well as several renditions of "Waiting For The End".

The performance featured a unique stage setup and design used only for this show, completely different than the "V" stage production that Linkin Park was using in 2010-2011.

Composition

At this time, Linkin Park was getting ready to debut multiple headlining setlists at the end of the European Tour. At this show, they performed a shortened setlist of the main set they were using on the tour at the time which opened with "The Requiem" and "Wretches & Kings".

Notable changes for this show's setlist which differed from the main touring set at the time included "Jornada Del Muerto" being listed on the set but being dropped for an unknown reason. Songs that were usually performed in the set were dropped likely due to time constraints - "Given Up", "No More Sorrow", "Crawling", and "One Step Closer". The band likely chose to drop these songs in order to keep as many A Thousand Suns songs in the set as possible for the one-off show.

Releases

The CD / DVD combo was released at different times in 2011. The European release was originally set for March 28, 2011 but was postponed to June 6, 2011 in order to coincide with Linkin Park's tour of Europe that summer. For example, Argentina received its release on April 1, 2011, South Korea on April 7, 2011, Australia on June 17, 2011, and so on.

A Thousand Suns+ was not released in the United States and was only released internationally.

"Wisdom, Justice, And Love" was edited out of this release due to licensing issues with the MLK Jr. family. This is the only song missing from the official release. Additionally, different camera angles were used (versus the satellite feed that was uploaded by fans) and the audio was mixed professionally. The DVD includes a folder with the audio of the show in 192kbps and also has a "Robot Boy" instrumental/remix piece in the credits.

On February 1, 2011, Linkin Park released the "A Thousand Suns: Puerta De Alcalá" EP - six songs taken from this show's performance.

The show's video satellite feed was recorded by fans and shared widely before this release. Its total length was 74:55 mins and featured the full, unedited show (including "Wisdom, Justice, And Love").

Track Listing

A Thousand Suns+ Bonus DVD: Live In Madrid

Includes MP3 of the show.

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1	The Requiem	Linkin Park	1:37
2	Wretches And Kings	Linkin Park	4:25
3	Papercut	Bennington Chester Charles, Bourdon Robert G, Delson Brad, Hahn Joseph, Shinoda Mike	3:18
4	New Divide	Linkin Park	4:30
5	Faint	Linkin Park	4:08
6	Empty Spaces/When They Come For Me	Linkin Park	5:31
7	Waiting For The End	Linkin Park	3:52
8	Iridescent	Linkin Park	5:01
9	Numb	Linkin Park	3:10
10	The Radiance	Linkin Park	1:49
11	Breaking The Habit	Linkin Park	3:59
12	Shadow Of The Day	Linkin Park	5:14
13	Fallout	Linkin Park	1:25
14	The Catalyst	Linkin Park	6:10
15	The Messenger	Linkin Park	3:40
16	In The End	Bennington, Bourdon, Delson, Hahn, Shinoda	3:28
17	What I've Done	Linkin Park	3:32
18	Bleed It Out/A Place For My Head	Linkin Park	5:05

Personnel

Linkin Park

• Chester Bennington: Vocals
• Mike Shinoda: Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Keyboard
• Brad Delson: Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals
• Dave "Phoenix" Farrell: Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
• Joseph Hahn: Turntables, Sampling, Programming, Backing Vocals
• Rob Bourdon: Drums, Backing Vocals

Gallery

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  Front cover

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  Front cover with sticker (courtesy of LPCatalog)

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  Back cover

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  CD of "A Thousand Suns" (courtesy of LPCatalog)

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  DVD of "A Thousand Suns+" (courtesy of LPCatalog)

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  Show setlist

Trivia

• This show was at one of three iconic venues the band performed at on the A Thousand Suns World Tour, the others being the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and Red Square in Moscow.
• "Waiting For The End" from this show was shown on TV for the MTV EMAs.