South American and European Tour 2010

Introduction

The South American and European Tours in fall and winter 2010 were the first two tours for Linkin Park's album A Thousand Suns. The trip to South America lasted for three shows in early October, before the band flew to Europe for the sixteen show arena tour across Europe. This was Linkin Park's first visit to South America since 2004, when they played one show in Brazil, and their first full tour of Europe since summer 2008.

Before the tour

Three promotional shows, including one album release show, took place in September for the album. On September 7th at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, KROQ hosted the Kevin and Bean Breakfast Show with Linkin Park as the band was working through their production rehearsals. Waiting For The End, Iridescent, and The Catalyst were performed for the first time.

On September 12th, the band played a unique set for the MTV VMA's - in front of the Griffith Observatory. Around one thousand LP fans were invited to see the performance for free. The Catalyst was broadcasted in the last few minutes of the 2012 VMA show. This was the first "iconic" venue that the band performed at on the A Thousand Suns World Tour. The Griffith Observatory, the Puerta de Acala in Madrid and Red Square in Moscow were three locations the band played on the tour.

On the 14th, Linkin Park held their album release show for A Thousand Suns. The only way to get in to the show was to buy tickets that were available to LPU members, those who preordered LPUX, and those who preordered A Thousand Suns from linkinpark.com. The show was sold out.

Debuting a brand new setlist, this was the first time that The Requiem, The Radiance, Wretches And Kings, Jornada Del Muerto and Fallout were performed live. Wretches And Kings was listed on the setlist with parentheses around it because the band was unsure, even up to show time, whether they were going to play the song or not, but they decided to play it at the last minute. This was the first time that New Divide opened a show and the first time that What I've Done closed a show. Additionally, this was the only time that the studio version of The Radiance was performed. After this show, the Oppenheimer speech was removed from it, leaving just the instrumental, and Joe live scratched the Savio speech from Wretches And Kings after it.

Summary

The full show, production, and setlist debuted on October 7th, 2010 in Buenos Aires, where Linkin Park played their first show ever in Argentina. This was the first time that Empty Spaces, When They Come For Me, Wisdom, Justice, And Love, and The Messenger were performed live. Papercut was performed for the first time since the last show of Projekt Revolution 2008, over two years prior.

The first show in Chile followed on the 9th. At this show, Mike began his tradition during the touring cycle of singing something during the bridge of Bleed It Out, beginning with Burning In The Skies. Then, the first show in Brazil since September 11, 2004 came on the 11th. After What I've Done closed the first three full shows of the A Thousand Suns World Tour, the band moved Bleed It Out down to the encore to close the show and it remained there. To present day, What I've Done has never closed another show.

On October 20th, the arena tour across Europe kicked off with a headlining show in Berlin. This tour set the record for the most Linkin Park shows in Germany on one tour - six - until 2014 topped it with nine. The show in Dortmund (between Paris and Köln) was added due to extraordinary demand after the first five German shows sold out.

Something unique happened on October 25th in Paris. After Crawling, Mike talked about how the 24th was a special day because of the Hybrid Theory 10th Anniversary. He said it was unrehearsed but the band decided to play A Place For My Head to celebrate. Even though fans continually requested the song at Meet & Greets the rest of the tour, the song went unplayed until touring in 2012 began. However, Mike did begin adding A Place For My Head to the bridge of Bleed It Out shortly afterward due to the requests.

Two shows later in Köln, due to seeing a thread on the site (LPLive) complaining about the lack of changing the setlists on the tour, the band decided to replace Papercut with Lying From You and The Messenger with Leave Out All The Rest. Both songs were performed unrehearsed. This began a rotation of these two setlists throughout the remainder of the tour.

Originally, an arena show was scheduled for November 6th in Sheffield, England as a part of the six shows in England to close the tour. However, Linkin Park was invited to Madrid on the 7th instead to play the MTV Europe Music Awards at the legendary Puerta de Alcalá. A slightly shortened setlist for this free show was played - fans had to RSVP to attend, with LPU'ers getting a chance to go as well. However, the band's set length was not announced prior to the show, so a lot of fans in Spain missed out on the show due to them thinking that Linkin Park would perform just one song for the EMA's. LP won the award for "Best Live Act" (presented by Slash) and invited their crew on stage with them when they accepted the award. Waiting For The End was aired on MTV during the EMA's. The band released a DVD of the show (minus one song) in 2011 to go with the 'A Thousand Suns+' release. Additionally, a Puerta de Alcalá EP was released to iTunes with six songs.

To close the tour, Linkin Park played two shows at the O2 Arena in London. The 1st LPU Summit was held before the second show. Fans who traveled all over the world to London were treated to an acoustic performance of Leave Out All The Rest and The Messenger, as well as a full band rehearsal featuring Papercut, From The Inside, Fallout, and The Catalyst.

Linkin Park debuted a brand new setlist for this show. This is the first time that the band opened with Fallout and The Catalyst. Before Papercut, Chester took the time to talk about the 10 year anniversary of the LPU. Mike talked after Shadow Of The Day about all of the different locations that LPU members came from for the LPU Summit. Points Of Authority and Somewhere I Belong were listed on two early drafts of the setlists, but ended up being replaced by No More Sorrow. From The Inside was performed for the first time since the last show of 2009 in Pomona, CA. The song was added to the setlist due to Mike reading comments on LPLive about the tour setlist up until this point. Finally, two fans who jammed earlier that day at the LPU Summit were brought up on stage to play Mike and Brad's parts on Faint (William Vasiliou w/ Mike's guitar and Aman Matharu w/ Brad's guitar).

Live Debuts

Memorable Moments

At the Dortmund show on October 26th, after seeing SpikeMinoda, Jacrid and Overkill (all LPL members) in the front of the crowd with their LPLive shirts on, Mike commented and said "Just for you guys" and then rapped the first verse of A Place For My Head during the bridge of Bleed It Out.

At the Frankfurt show on November 2nd, Mike rapped the first verse of Reading My Eyes over the intro of Bleed It Out after it was requested during the LP Underground Meet & Greet. He did this again at the Birmingham show on November 9th.

At the show in Newcastle, England on November 5th, Brad extended the intro of Bleed It Out by jamming on the intro notes for a while. The crowd sang over half of the first verse with Mike, and during the bridge, the band did the "ohh ohh" sing-a-long for the first time since Projekt Revolution 2008. It was the only show of the tour that did not feature either Burning In The Skies or A Place For My Head over the bridge of the song.

At the Birmingham show on November 9th, the band pulled a fan up on stage named Chris to play Mike's guitar on Crawling. It was the first time that a fan had played guitar on the song, and the first time any fan has been on stage to play guitar since the very first show of the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle in Berlin, Germany.

After the tour

Immediately after the shows in London, Linkin Park flew to the Middle East. On November 13th, they played Abu Dhabi for the first time, for the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The setlist for this show was the new one with Fallout and The Catalyst opening, but it was played for the very last time at this show - only performed twice ever.

On the 15th, Linkin Park held their first concert in Israel, headlining Tel Aviv's Park Ha-Yarkon. During the acoustic guitar intro of The Messenger, Chester talked to the crowd about it being the last show of the tour and thanked the fans for coming to the show. He then sang over a minute of No Woman, No Cry by Bob Marley & The Wailers before going into The Messenger. Before the show, the mayor of Jerusalem offered the band the opportunity to shoot a music video in the city and to come headline a show as well in the future.

Rehearsals

Production rehearsal

A full production rehearsal took place at Berlin's O2 Arena, location of the first show of the tour, on October 19th before the tour kicked off the next day. Since there were passes issued by MLK, the German promoter, we are guessing that they allowed a few fans in to the rehearsal. This might not be correct, but we are listing the show in case that is true.

Crew

Name	Job
Jim Digby	Production Manager
Ken "Pooch" Van Druten	FOH Engineer
Kevin "Tater" McCarthy	Monitor Engineer
Sean Paden	Guitar Technician (Brad)
Mark Fiore	Videographer