It’s only been a week since Linkin Park announced their grand return, but that week has been an emotional journey for anyone who’s even slightly invested in the Linkin Park project. At their grand announcement event last week, Linkin Park unveiled their new lineup, with Dead Sara’s Emily Armstrong filling the spot that the late Chester Bennington once held. They also shared new single “The Emptiness Machine” and announced plans for new album From Zero and a series of arena shows around the world. The first of those shows was last night.

The immediate reaction to Linkin Park’s reunion was almost euphoric, but things have gotten complicated since then. The Mars Volta/At The Drive-In’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala called out Emily Armstrong, revealing that she was one of the people who showed up in court to support her fellow Scientologist Danny Masterson, the former That ’70s Show star currently in prison for rape. Armstrong made a statement distancing herself from Masterson, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s wife Chrissie Carnell-Bixler, one of the women pursuing charges against Masterson, criticized her for remaining silent on Scientology. Meanwhile, the late Chester Bennington’s oldest son Jaime lashed out at his father’s bandmate Mike Shinoda, writing that Shinoda “quietly erased my father’s life and legacy.”

Last night, Linkin Park played their first proper reunion show at LA’s Kia Forum. They performed at their Burbank unveiling last week, but this was Linkin Park’s first time playing for a paying audience since 2007. They played 27 songs, including a couple of new ones and a few that they hadn’t done in many years. (“My December,” for instance, hadn’t been performed since 2008.)

During the encore, Mike Shinoda made a bit of a speech. He asked how many fans had seen Linkin Park before and how many were seeing them for the first time. Then he went on: “We are thrilled to be back out here. It is not about erasing the past. It is about starting this new chapter into the future and coming out here for each and every one of you. We love playing for you guys. We love writing this music. We are very fucking excited about the new record.”

“It’s not about erasing the past. It’s about starting this new chapter into the future.” -Mike Shinoda@LINKINPARK • #FromZero World Tour pic.twitter.com/ouwQo53D3M

— The Kia Forum (@thekiaforum) September 12, 2024

That could’ve been a response to Jaime Bennington, or it could’ve just been Shinoda reaffirming that Linkin Park are now an active band again, that they’re moving forward from the tragedy of Bennington’s suicide. Check out last night’s setlist below, via Setlist.fm.

SETLIST:
01 “Somewhere I Belong”
02 “Crawling”
03 “Lying From You”
04 “Points Of Authority”
05 “New Divide”
06 “The Emptiness Machine”
07 “The Catalyst”
08 “Burn It Down”
09 “Waiting For The End”
10 “Castle Of Glass”
11 Joe Hahn solo
12 “When They Come for Me / Remember The Name”
13 “Lost In The Echo”
14 “Given Up”
15 “One Step Closer”
16 “Lost”
17 “Breaking The Habit”
18 “What I’ve Done”
19 “Leave Out All The Rest”
20 “My December”
21 “Friendly Fire”
22 “Numb”
23 “In The End”
24 “Faint”
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25 “Papercut”
26 “Keys To The Kingdom”
27 “Bleed It Out”