Background
On November 4th, 2013, Linkin Park and Download Festival announced, "Linkin Park will be headlining next year’s Download Festival on Saturday June 14th, 2014 and performing HYBRID THEORY in its entirety."
Chester: "We have been kicking around the idea of playing HYBRID THEORY for some time and the perfect opportunity is DOWNLOAD 2014. The legendary energy of the DOWNLOAD crowd is the apex of the rock experience and we are very excited to share this special night with them."
Shortly after the announcement, #HybridTheory began to trend on social media worldwide.
The band later admitted that if they did not agree to play Hybrid Theory in full, Download was going to ask another band to headline.
Chester (Loudwire Interview): "That was an interesting situation that came up. We knew that this year marks the 15th anniversary of ‘Hybrid Theory’ [a demo version came out in 1999, while the album was properly released in 2000]. We wanted to do something special, so we were like, it’d be cool to do some small shows and just play ‘Hybrid Theory’ for some diehard fans. We were already starting to think about doing that. Then when we got the call from the promoters of Download. We've headlined Download several times so they wanted to do something special. They felt like ‘Hybrid Theory’ was a real important record and they came to us to see if we wanted to headline Download, but they thought it would be really great if you guys did something different because you’ve been here so often, would you be interested in playing ‘Hybrid Theory’ from beginning to end to celebrate that record on its 15th anniversary. And if you don’t, we’re probably going to ask someone else to headline because you guys were just here a few years ago. We were like, yeah — this is a great opportunity. Now we can do it in front of a huge audience, it’ll be real exciting. I can’t wait until we get to Download and we start ‘Papercut.’ Once that beat kicks in dude, I just have a feeling the crowd is going to fucking lose their mind. It’s funny, we play that song every night but I think in the context of people being able to hear it beginning to end, we’ve never done that before. A lot of these songs we haven’t played in 15 years. It’ll be a real fun night. Then to follow that up with some of the new stuff, it’ll be awesome."
Advertised as the first time that the album was being played in full, we ran across a show in which the album was performed in full previously in 2001. In June 2001 on the US-to-Europe Tour, Linkin Park closed the tour with five shows in Europe - Copenhagen, Rock im Park (two shows), Rock am Ring, and a sold out show at London's Brixton Academy on June 4, 2001.
Mike replied to our tweet saying, "But it was never performed front to back; we had 60 minute headline set times, and less than 40 minutes of album music, ha!" Download Festival was at least the second known time in which all songs on the album were performed at a show, but no more than the third. It was the first time in the band's history in which the album was performed in order start-to-finish. Additionally, the version of Cure For The Itch performed in 2001 was not a full version of the song and was always played abbreviated.
Writing and Recording
Composition
Rehearsals for Download began months before the show took place. Due to Linkin Park replacing their entire backline and an incredible amount of gear, they needed quite a while to rehearse and to get everything set for the tour. The gear replacement plus the Download rehearsals were the reason the band didn't work out more than three new songs ("Guilty All The Same", "Wastelands", and "Until It's Gone") from The Hunting Party for the live shows to start the touring cycle. While none of the songs were extremely hard to "relearn", it did take Linkin Park a while to nail the set down in rehearsals.
Interestingly and to the surprise of fans, the band did not "road test" any of the rarer songs beforehand to warm them up for Download, like "By Myself", "Forgotten", or "Pushing Me Away".
To start the show, Mike walked out on "Papercut" with a red wig on, which was given to him by LPU member Graham Hatton at the LPU Meet & Greet and can be seen in the LPTV episode for the tour. There was no actual intro to the show, just a video played over the screen of the recent "Road To Download" episode of LPTV.
Before "Crawling", Mike remarked "This is a special night for us, we've never done this before." He also mentioned on the intro of "A Place For My Head" that the song was used to open the setlists up for the band back in the day (2000-2001 era).
Mike paused before the second set to joke with the crowd, saying "If this was 2001 we'd be done now!" He then showed the large crowd a finished copy of their new album and proceeded to throw it into the crowd.
By Myself was last performed live on October 29, 2003 in Seoul, South Korea. Mike read lyrics from the stage for both By Myself and Forgotten. Forgotten was last confirmed to have been performed on February 24, 2002 in Las Vegas, but the band performed a show at the House Of Blues in Los Angeles on March 4, 2002 for a benefit concert. The setlist for that show is unknown, but it was likely that the Projekt Revolution 2002 headlining setlist (which included Forgotten) was performed at that show. The band messed up the beginning of the song, with Chester and Mike both skipping the first line. Mike messed up part of the second verse.
Cure For The Itch was last performed on August 31, 2011 in Los Angeles. That version of the song (performed throughout Europe and North America in summer 2008 as well as for two shows in August 2011) was a remix. The studio version was last performed on June 4, 2001 in London, but all performances in 2000 and 2001 were shortened. This was the first time that the FULL studio version of Cure For The Itch was performed live. Mike rerecorded the vocal samples in the song for this performance and Joe added a few more improv beats over the song. The ending fade-out was lot longer than the studio version and past performances.
Pushing Me Away' was last performed on August 21, 2008 in Maryland Heights, MO. The piano version of the song was last performed two shows later on August 24, 2008 in Woodlands, TX.
After Hybrid Theory, eleven more songs were performed to close out the show. Wastelands was performed with a hard start to the song due to it being the first performance without it coming out of the end of Runaway like all of the prior shows in 2014. This is the first full show that Faint has not been played at since the beginning of the LP Underground Tour in 2003 when it was debuted live for the first time. It is also the first time that just one song from Meteora (Numb) was on the setlist for a show since the touring cycle began for that album in February 2003.
While he has since praised the crowd on Twitter, a month after the show, Chester told NME in his first interview since Download that "outdoor festivals killed the live experience." Many took this as a direct comment about Download Festival. He added, "Rock'n'roll is not meant to be played with the sun shining on your face. It can be done, but it's done begrudgingly. Inside. Dark, lights, controlled environment. Always better." These correlate with his comments about Projekt Revolution not returning partially because he isn't a fan of the opening bands performing outside in the daylight.
Releases
Digital
Two days before the show, Linkin Park updated the preorders for The Hunting Party by adding a digital download of the Download Festival show.
FOR A LIMITED TIME ALSO GET HYBRID THEORY - LIVE AT DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL 2014 LINKIN PARK is playing their seminal first album, Hybrid Theory, front to back LIVE for the first time ever at Download Festival 2014 in the UK. As a thank you to loyal fans, the audio from this special performance is being made available for those fans who can't be there. ALL OFFERS BELOW WILL COME WITH THIS SPECIAL CONCERT EVENT if you order by 6/22
The download arrived on August 11th, 2014, just before Carnivores Tour began. The audio was mixed by Ethan Mates and went through significant editing beforehand, more so than previous DSP (Digital Souvenir Package) releases by LP. For example, Rob's cymbal taps before "Pushing Me Away" were removed, the steel sample on Points Of Authority from the studio version was added to the first part of the song, etc. However, Mike's lyric blunder on the intro of "By Myself" was untouched.
This is the first official live recording release of "Forgotten" by Linkin Park. Fans who received the email for downloading the show were able to choose between FLAC and MP3, and as a bonus received a download link for the official FLAC version of The Hunting Party.
Track Listing
Standard Edition
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Papercut | Linkin Park | 3:13 |
| 2 | One Step Closer | 3:12 | |
| 3 | With You | 3:34 | |
| 4 | Points Of Authority | 5:00 | |
| 5 | Crawling | 3:29 | |
| 6 | Runaway | 3:16 | |
| 7 | By Myself | 3:24 | |
| 8 | In The End | 3:40 | |
| 9 | A Place For My Head | 3:43 | |
| 10 | Forgotten | 3:26 | |
| 11 | Cure For The Itch (Remix) | 2:50 | |
| 12 | Pushing Me Away | 3:29 |
Personnel
Linkin Park
- Chester Bennington: Vocals
- Mike Shinoda: Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Keyboard
- Brad Delson: Lead Guitar
- Dave "Phoenix" Farrell: Bass Guitar, Samples on "Lost in the Echo"
- Joseph Hahn: Turntables, Sampling, Programming
- Rob Bourdon: Drums
Reception
Gallery
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Cover
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Show setlist
