On Sunday 3rd November in Paris, 40,000 spectators gathered in the Paris La Défense Arena to celebrate the revival of Linkin Park on stage with their new singer Emily Armstrong. Since returning to the limelight in early September, the Californian nu metal band meters explode: the inaugural single Empty car it’s already the most played rock song of the year, with over 100 million cumulative plays on Spotify. From Zerotheir eighth studio album, has barely been released when a Stade de France is scheduled for the summer of 2025 as part of a major world tour.
Who would have thought seven years ago that the band from Agoura Hills (California) would make such a resounding comeback? In June 2017, Linkin Park headlined Hellfest, a mecca for extreme music based in Clisson (Loire-Atlantique). The reception there is frosty; One more lighttheir latest opus, very pop-oriented, is not unanimous among the metal audience. The next day, singer Chester Bennington, affected by these reactions, was moved by it on his Twitter account. The bass player, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, a fortysomething in a cap and tracksuit, recalls the incident. “ In our defense, I have always had a combative temperament. The most metal thing we could do at Hellfest was play quiet songs. »
Earthquake a month later: Chester Bennington commits suicide on July 20. The singer with the scratchy tube voice Crawling struggled with recurring depression and various addictions. The trauma is as violent as it is unexpected for his faithful accomplices Mike Shinoda (songwriter, second singer and rapper), Joe Hahn (DJ), Brad Delson (guitar), Dave Farrell (bass) and Rob Bourdon (drums) . Few groups manage to recover from such a tragedy, let alone generate new public enthusiasm: AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Alice in Chains are among the rare exceptions identified.
“A General Thrill”
Seven years later, the day after their triumph at La Défense Arena in Paris, Emily Armstrong, Mike Shinoda and “Phoenix” partied in a palace a stone’s throw from the Champs-Elysées. Beyond the second departure, From Zero (“starting from scratch”), the title of their latest album, is symbolic in two ways: “ That was the name of our first band, Xero, before opting for Hybrid Theory with the arrival of Chester, then Linkin Park, explains the affable Mike Shinoda, the true mastermind of the group. At the time, we were still searching for our sound, our identity. In that sense, we were a bit like today’s group with Emily. But the good thing is that now we have a lot of experience. » New blood is also infused with drummer Colin Brittain taking over for Rob Bourdon.
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