Asian Tour 2008

Introduction

The Asian Tour in October 2008 was going to be the last tour for the Minutes To Midnight album and was set to be Linkin Park's second tour of Asia for the album, something they had never done for an album before.

Visiting China, Taiwan, and Macau, the shows were supposed to be fund-raising concerts to help those affected by the earthquake that struck the Chinese province of Sichuan in May 2008 in which there were over 88,000 fatalities. As such, the tour was coined the "Music For Relief Sichuan Benefit Tour" by LPLive.

Before the tour

After Projekt Revolution, the band took about a month off from touring. They had a private show scheduled in Las Vegas, NV on October 6th, just before the Asian Tour kicked off.

A press release on the Verizon Wireless website read: "LAS VEGAS, NV — The University of Nevada Las Vegas has won the Verizon Wireless “Remix2Win with Linkin Park” national contest thanks to Valerie Cossio, Class of 2009, who submitted the winning remix. Cossio’s prize, as a representative of UNLV, is a private Linkin Park concert for 2,000 of her fellow Rebels. The concert will be held at The Joint in Las Vegas on Oct. 6, 2008, and those who attend will also hear Cossio’s winning remixes of Linkin Park’s hit songs “Crawling” and “In the End.”"

The show was canceled the day of. Instead of rescheduling the show, the band flew Valerie to Europe to see them perform on July 21, 2009 in Greece along with giving her a M&G pass.

"Los Angeles, CA (October 6, 2008) - Linkin Park has been forced to cancel tonight's concert at the The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, as lead vocalist Chester Bennington has sustained a back injury and is under doctor's orders to rest. Linkin Park sincerely regrets this unavoidable cancellation and apologizes to fans for any disappointment caused." Mike posted this on his blog: "FROM MIKE: We're bummed...Chester hurt his back, and is in quite a bit of pain. Please think good thoughts for our friend."

Summary

The tour was canceled on October 7th, 2008, the day after the date of the canceled Las Vegas show.

"Linkin Park has been forced to cancel their upcoming Music For Relief Concerts in Mainland China, Macau and Taipei as lead vocalist Chester Bennington has sustained a back injury and is under doctor's orders to refrain from traveling or any physical activities. Linkin Park sincerely regrets this unavoidable cancellation and apologizes to fans for any disappointment caused. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase. The concerts were organized as fundraisers to benefit Sichuan, an area ravaged by a devastating earthquake this past May. However, thanks to generous donations from concert promoter Emma Ticketmaster and Linkin Park, funds will still be contributed to the band’s nonprofit organization, Music for Relief, and matched by the World Bank. These funds will benefit post-earthquake reconstruction projects in the Sichuan Province initiated by Chinese Civil Society Organizations."

Years later, Chester said that he was playing with Legos with one of his kids when he reached for one of them, tweaked his back, and injured himself pretty badly.

For the five show tour, the first four shows were stadium shows (Shanghai, Wuhan, Taipei, and Beijing) and the final show was in an arena in Macau. During the band's summer tour in 2009, they returned to Shanghai, Taipei, and Macau to make up three of the five shows. They returned to Taipei in 2013 during the Living Things World Tour. This was going to be the first Linkin Park show in Beijing, and the band finally made it to the city in 2015 on The Hunting Party World Tour.

In fall of 2011, Linkin Park was booked to play three stadium shows in China - Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan. However, after their meeting with the Dalai Lama in May 2011, the entire Chinese portion of the tour was canceled by the communist Chinese government and the band was essentially "banned" from performing in China. This situation was not rectified until 2015, when Linkin Park played five stadium shows across China.

In March 2010, Linkin Park sued Lloyd's of London, an insurance company, saying that the band never received its insurance compensation for the canceled shows. Their request for a payout was initially denied because Lloyd's claimed that Chester's problem was pre-exisiting. Lloyd's attempted to have the case thrown out in 2011 and 2012, but a judge denied the motion to dismiss the case. A settlement between the band and the company was finally reached in May 2012. It is important to note that both Nickelback and Foo Fighters have also sued Lloyd's of London in recent years for issues as well.