North American Tour 2011

North American Tour 2011
North American Tour 2011
Tour by Linkin Park
Type:	Headline
Associated album:	A Thousand Suns
Start:	January 20, 2011
End:	February 28, 2011
Number of shows:	24
Cancelled shows:	5
Supporting acts:	Pendulum, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, The Prodigy
Tour chronology
Tour chronology

Introduction

The North American Tour in January, February, and March 2011 was a 24-date tour that took Linkin Park across the United States as well as into southeastern Canada.

Five shows on the tour were canceled, with two being rescheduled for the end of the tour, and two for the following year's summer tour (Honda Civic Tour).

Summary

A month before the the tour began, the band posted, "We are excited to have three great bands come out with us on the upcoming North American Tour—The Prodigy, Pendulum and Does it Offend You, Yeah?. To help you get to know them, we put together a free digital EP containing a high quality MP3 from each band, as well as two live LP tracks from our recent show in Tel Aviv. We hope that you'll become as big a fan of these bands as we are. -Chester"

This EP was released on linkinpark.com and included Numb and When They Come For Me from the Israel show in 2010.

The tour started out in Sunrise, Florida, where the band played the A-1 headlining setlist from 2010. The show fell on Rob's birthday so the band sang Happy Birthday to him before In The End. Fallout and The Catalyst were dropped from the setlist at this show; this was the only show of the 'A Thousand Suns' World Tour to not feature The Catalyst.

At the third show of the tour, the band swapped Wretches And Kings and Papercut in the setlist order, where they would remain for the rest of the tour. The fourth show in Detroit brought huge changes as the B-11 setlist made its debut. New Divide opened the show for the first time since the September 2010 A Thousand Suns release show in New York City and for just the second time ever. The encore featured a unique mix of Blackout, Papercut, Crawling, Faint, and One Step Closer.

The very next show in Chicago featured the 3rd LPU Summit, where fans were treated to a rehearsal performance of Blackout and Burning In The Skies. Another setlist was debuted, with Faint opening. The third setlist was played at the show after that in St. Paul, with Papercut and Lying From You opening and Faint closing the encore.

At these two shows, the band asked fans to film Waiting For The End for their upcoming music video, saying, "In celebration of the current leg of our world tour, we're putting together a LIVE video for "Waiting for the End," and we want it to be filmed by you. We think the world should see the show from your perspective. Here's what we want you to do: If you are attending our January 26th show in Chicago, or January 28th in St. Paul, pull out your camera or phone when we play "Waiting for the End," and capture your best footage. We don't only want to see the band on stage; we want to see you in the crowd, your friends, the people around you singing, even footage from the parking lot or outside and around the venue...whatever you think looks cool." The video was released several weeks later on Valentine's Day.

Starting with the Philadelphia show, Mike began practicing different variations of the wording on When They Come For Me, removing the "motherfucker" line. This was for Saturday Night Live, the band's second performance on the show, which took place on February 5th after they headlined Madison Square Garden for the second time the night before.

The band performed their latest single Waiting For The End and then When They Come For Me, and had both shown on TV in black and white, a first for SNL. Mike later commented that they had to pick between When They Come For Me' and Blackout to play as their second song.

Several shows later, Chester tweeted after the Toronto show to thank the crowd but said he felt very sick. In the following days, the next five shows were canceled. Washington D.C., Uncasville, and Cincinnati were all canceled individually just before the shows, and then Houston/Dallas were canceled together but were rescheduled for the end of the tour in March.

Linkin Park took the stage again in Las Vegas on February 19th, missing over a week of the tour. It was Chester's third straight North American Tour with a cancellation (2004, 2008, and 2011). Before Iridescent at that show, Chester said that they weren't sure they were going to be able to play the show but he's glad they did. Before the show, Linkin Park did a M&G at Club Tattoo in Las Vegas from 6pm to 8pm. There was also an official after-party later on in the night after the show at Haze Nightclub at the Aria Hotel and Casino. Mr. Hahn performed a DJ set at the party.

The band finished the six shows left on the tour and then headed to Texas to conclude it with the rescheduled Dallas and Houston dates.

Memorable Moments

In San Jose, CA on February 22nd, an interesting technical issue forced the band to improvise a part of the show. After the outro of Numb, Mike told Dylan (tech) to hold off on starting the click track for Iridescent because his keyboard broke. While another one of Mike's keyboards was brought out, Brad started playing the guitar part to Iridescent and Chester got the crowd involved in singing the chorus two times. Chester also talked about fans telling him at the M&G that they haven't been back since "like 2002" (LPL note: really 2004).

Then, the band decided to play The Messenger, with Chester commenting, "We weren't going to play this song tonight, but apparently it wants to be played". A new keyboard was ready to go for Mike, who commented that it was a bit busted up (from damage earlier in the tour) but it would work. The set then continued on with Iridescent like planned.

Rehearsals

Production rehearsal

The day the tour began in Sunrise, Florida, Linkin Park invited radio winners from across the nation to come watch them rehearse for the tour. The rehearsal was held at about 4:00pm the day the show and was over an hour and a half long. Brad was not present for this due to being sick, but he played the show later that night. He was also missing from the LPU M&G that night.

During the rehearsal, the five band members gathered at the front of the stage to write the setlists they were going to use on the tour. Mike gave a speech to the fans gathered and said, "Welcome to soundcheck. We are making our setlists right now. Brad is sick right now so he is not soundchecking, but he will be at the show. All of his guitar parts at the soundcheck are sampled for right now but we want to make sure you know that we do not do that live, ever. Also, we are rehearsing songs that you will not see at the show tonight."

An interesting note about this rehearsal is that it's where Phoenix started playing Blackout on his bass guitar. After the fourth attempt at the song, Mike told the fans that Phoenix is still learning to play the bass guitar on the song, but it's hard to get the tech specs right for it. While he didn't use the bass on Blackout during this tour, he started it during the European Tour later in the summer.

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

Credentials

Tour
All Access
All Access (NYC)
All Access (LA)
Support
LPU M&G
Working
Guest
Photo
Radio Side Stage FOH