Summer Sanitarium 2003

Introduction

The Summer Sanitarium Tour was Metallica's Summer Tour in the United States and Canada that ran from July 4th to August 10th, 2003. It consisted of nineteen stadium shows across the United States and Canada. The tour was in support of Metallica's new album St. Anger, which came out June 5th, 2003, and was the first and only stadium tour that Linkin Park has ever played.

Linkin Park played third on the bill, after Mudvayne and Deftones. Limp Bizkit and Metallica followed Linkin Park's set.

Before the tour

Before the tour, Linkin Park cancelled an entire European Tour that was supposed to take the band across Europe playing many big name festivals and shows, the reasoning being that Chester got very sick and required hospitalization.

The band's official statement for the cancelled shows was as follows, "Chester Bennington, vocalist for the rock band Linkin Park was admitted to a Los Angeles area hospital last Friday afternoon after an attack of severe back and abdominal pains. Bennington remains hospitalized as doctors are still trying to determine the cause of these ailments. All touring and video shoot plans in Europe have been put on hold this month as we make sure Chester fully recovers. We wish him the best, and will keep everyone posted as to his condition."

Chester also had this to say about the cancelled shows, "First of all I'd like to thank everyone from fans & bands to my friends, and the hospital staff who have been very supportive and understanding of my situation. I finally got out of the hospital over the weekend after 9 days, and the doctor instructed me to rest for the next 2 - 3 weeks. Right now it seems like it was some bacteria or virus that spread throughout my intestines and body, putting me in intense pain. It also would not let me eat for a week. My doctors and nurses were amazing, and very helpful during my stay. We are working on when we will be making up the missed European headline dates, and I am really bummed we had to miss the festivals. I plan on playing our warm up show in Las Vegas on June 27th, and ripping everyone's face off this summer on SUMMER SANITARIUM. I also wanted to say I truly appreciate the tens of thousands of get-well emails I got from fans. Our fans really are the best in the world. -Chester."

However, Linkin Park did play one show before the tour on June 27th in Las Vegas, NV for the Boost Mobile Pro of Skateboarding. Figure.09 and Numb were both debuted at the show, but that's sadly the only real information available about the show. It likely was the same setlist as Summer Sanitarium, and was the warmup show for the tour.

Summary

The band used only one setlist the entire tour, which was a new setlist for the touring cycle. The set opened with Don't Stay and ended with One Step Closer and did not feature an encore. There was a short intro before Don't Stay at every show entitled the "Devil Worship Intro" which sampled Dead Skin Mask by Slayer and the movie Cromwell. Interestingly, P5hng Me A*wy remained in the setlist from Projekt Revolution 2003. Later, Mike commented that he knew Metallica fans would be like "what the hell" when Linkin Park brought a keyboard out to play Numb mid-show.

The tour kicked off in Pontiac, MI on July 4th and ended on August 10th in San Francisco, CA.

K-Rock in New York City held annual Dysfunctional Family Picnic (DFP) events on-and-off from 1997 to 2008. In 2003, the Dysfunctional Family Pinic was called "DFP 7-Tarium". Instead of booking an original show, it was just another stop on Metallica's Summer Sanitarium tour.

The band performed several make up dates for Projekt Revolution 2003 during off dates of the tour. They played in Rochester, NY, Council Bluffs, IA and Valley Center, KS. Evansville, IN and Little North Rock, AR were never made up.

Memorable Moments

Phoenix sprained his ankle during A Place For My Head at the Houston, TX show, which you can actually see happen on the Live In Texas DVD.

Mike said the biggest mosh pits of the tour came from the Los Angeles, CA show.

During the Seattle, WA show, someone threw something at Chester during Crawling, and Chester whole heartedly cursed them out.

Lars Ulrich of Metallica came out during Linkin Park's set in Houston, TX to pull a prank on the band, and this can actually be seen on the DVD during From The Inside. The band also pranked Metallica back on the final date of the tour in San Francisco, CA. The LP Underground 2 Newsletter offered some insight, "Toward the end of the tour, Lars Ulrich put on fuzzy, pink bunny-ears and big green "Hulk"-fists and invaded our stage to mess around with us during our set. Later, on the last day of the tour (Metallica's hometown of San Francisco), we were allowed to go on stage and pull a little practical joke on Metallica, a feat that (as we were told) no band in twenty years has been allowed to do. We took a basket, blanket, and food onto their stage and had a little picnic as they played "Master of Puppets."

The band would often break equipment at the end of the show, which can be seen on the Live In Texas DVD, for example. Chester would destroy a guitar, Brad would destroy a guitar, sometimes Joe Hahn would destroy his turntable equipment, amongst other things.

Touring Bands

Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Deftones, Mudvayne

A few different incidents involving some of the other bands happened on the tour.

Deftones cancelled their set after Chino was admitted to the hospital for an unknown reason at the Minneapolis, MN stop of the tour.

It was also reported that during the Cicero, IL show of the tour, Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit stormed off stage, thus cancelling their set. The rumor goes that a local radio station was known for insulting Limp Bizkit and the local DJ told the fans at the show to antagonize Fred Durst the best that they could. A few songs into the set, Fred Durst became extremely pissed off, cussing at the fans in the audience and making a huge scene, even cussing out the security. He eventually stormed off stage after he was hit with something that somebody threw from the crowd and the band never returned back on stage.

Lars Ulrich of Metallica later commented on the issue during an interview, saying, "I don't know enough about it to give you...other than, I was backstage doing a meet-and-greet, signing autographs for members of our fan club and a few other friends, and I just... Bizkit played 15-20 minutes and then the last song they do... I guess I shouldn't give it away. And I was like why's the last song 45 minutes early? So they went off stage and I went over to find Fred Durst after I was done doing my meet-and-greet and I asked him What was up with that? and he just said there wasn't a lot of love for Bizkit in Chicago. And apparently, not only is what the fans did to Limp Bizkit disrespectful to Limp Bizkit themselves, it's also disrespectful to the Limp Bizkit fans. But one more thing: It's also disrespectful to Metallica, because we wouldn't have fuckin' put Limp Bizkit on a Metallica stage or invite them to be out here if we didn't respect them and have love for them and so on."

Linkin Park was actually quite well received amongst the fans at the show, however, as were Mudvayne and Deftones.

Metallica had this to say about the tour in a press release in early July of 2003, "We want Summer Sanitarium to be the best stuff that's out there now. I hope - and think - that we have done that. The other so-called headliners, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit, are the best at what they do in their worlds. Deftones and Mudvayne...they have a different style, we're getting heavy music together. The fans are getting their money's worth - there are a lot of worn-out fans when we go on. It's a long day, but it's a lot of quality."

Chino Moreno also discussed the tour during an interview in 2003, saying, "A big problem for me was opening for Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, two bands that wouldn't exist if it weren't for me, straight up! But in the end, I'm seriously energized and I'm not going out there to make friends and kick it. I'm out there to leave people with their jaws on the floor. And I know we can do it. I know we're the best live band on the tour." Chino was then asked if that included the tour's headliner, Metallica and he had this to say, "Hell yeah. Metallica have a vast catalog. But live? Motherfuckers just stand there and play. We're gonna rock out their shit. We're gonna blow that motherfucker up."

Releases

Linkin Park filmed their first live album at the Houston, TX and Irving, TX shows of the tour. The album featured the entire set, with different sections being filmed at each of the shows. The CD included with the album only featured twelve songs from the show and cut Don't Stay, Figure.09, With You, By Myself and A Place For My Head. However, the five cut tracks ended up being released on CD through LP Underground 3 later in the year.

"This CD offers five live tracks from the Texas shows we played for Summer Sanitarium 2003 that are not included on the Live In Texas CD. We wanted to give LPUers the opportunity to have the entire show in their CD collection."

"We chose to share the Summer Sanitarium tracks with you because the tour was an amazing experience for us. Not only were we able to perform with some of the great bands we admire, but also we were able to meet so many of you at the LPU meet and greets." The DVD included with the album featured the entire 17 song set and wasn't edited down like the CD was, with additional banter before the songs, etc. Brandon Belsky of Julien-K mixed the live album.

Additionally, some random live footage from various shows can be seen during LPTV and LPUTV episodes.

Itinerary

Itinerary

Crew

Name	Job
Rob McDermott	Band Manager
Mike Amato	Tour Manager
John T. Williams	Tour Security
Bruce Thompson	Personal Security
Emilio Olguin	Personal Security
Glyn "English" Morris	Band Bus Driver
Charlie Fisher	Band Bus Driver
Phil Ramsey	Band Bus Driver
Mark Fiore	Videographer
Jim Digby	Production Manager
Robert "Ragman" Long	Stage Manager
Janet Taylor	Production Assistant
Mark Wise	Security Director
A.J. Pen	Lighting Director
Brad Divens	Front of House Engineer
Jerry Harvey	Monitor Engineer
Donnie Floyd	Drum Tech / Backline Crew Chief
John Van Eaton	ProTools / Show Electronics
Jason Lemiere	DJ Tech
Sean Paden	Guitar Tech
Ted Regier	Bass Tech
Shawn Shebetka	Carpenter
Seth Kendall	Audio Crew Chief
James George	Video Director
Chris Levine	Video Engineer
Tim Cerola	Camera Operator
Kristine Sulem	Camera Operator
Paul McGuire	Camera Operator
Alan Cosgrove	Camera Operator
Bryan Utech	Merchandiser
John "Bones" Crawford	Crew Bus Driver
Harry Wing	Crew Bus Driver
John "JJ" Coleman	Lead Truck Driver
Gerard DeMiglio	Truck Driver
David Groves	Truck Driver
Dizzy Gosnell	Stage & Lighting Concept Designer

Credentials

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  LPU Meet & Greet