March 3, 2013

To: Linkin Park management, Linkin Park touring staff, and all others whom it may concern,

We are writing to show our appreciation for the live shows released and sold by Linkin Park online as well as to bring up the possibility of releasing some older shows by the band.

The Linkin Park community is very thankful for the DSP (Digital Souvenir Package) concept, which allows fans around the world to relive their concert experiences over and over again. Introduced in July 2007 on the Projekt Revolution tour, live show offerings began with a live CD code available to purchase at a show. In 2008, the DSP program was introduced where fans could buy the show online (sometimes even with their ticket purchases), including the audio of the full performance and photos from the event at downloads.linkinpark.com.

The DSP program has continued to this day, including shows from 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The DSPs have become quite popular with fans of the band, encouraging discussions on every single show released (a whopping 229 shows as of March 2013).

Chester in 2008 commented,

“For those who get this thing, you know, our sets change, we play songs maybe one night that we don’t play the next, and so if you want to get those songs, you know, we encourage our fans to go on and trade them and kind of get to know each other and communicate and share and exchange things with each other, and this is one of those things that we would really like our fans to kind of do that with.”

Mike also said the same year during Projekt Revolution:

“Fans love it. I mean if you go to our Web site and you check out the message board we have a whole section dedicated to the fans who want to talk to each other about swapping those files and sharing their experiences of the show. For us, and you can kind of get a sense with the other bands as well, that for us and this whole tour it’s kind of about like let’s just see where it goes. We’re keeping our minds open to what happens every night, we try to make the set — more and more often we make it flow and feel, we feel out what the crowd wants us to do, we kind of jam a little bit. And with all that said, you know each show is a little bit different, sometimes a lot different. And that just makes for a better experience for the fans and it’s one that now, with that digital souvenir package that they can actually take home.”

Like Mike mentioned, there is a large online presence of LP fans who enjoy collecting and discussing these officially recorded shows, both on official LP websites and on the numerous fan sites across the web. Additionally, on these fan sites (forums and torrent sites as well), there are fan-recorded concerts of the band from 2000-2013 which fans trade, collect and listen to time and time again. Over the years, many fans enjoyed highlights of Linkin Park’s live performances due to the dedication of those who go out of their way to record shows. However, all too frequently the quality of these recordings is lacking.

Prior to 2007 when the live CDs started, only one full Linkin Park show had been released by the band – the CD/DVD “Live in Texas” in 2003. Nothing from the start of when Linkin Park began playing live to 2003 has ever been released and nothing from 2004-2006 has ever been released (from the “Live In Texas” period to the online live shows period starting in 2007). There have been occasional live songs tacked onto releases by the band (international singles + Linkin Park Underground CDs), such as a song from 2003 or a few tracks from 2006 for example.

With the “Hybrid Theory Studio Collection” release on iTunes (January 2013), ‘High Voltage’ live from the Wantagh, New York 2001 show surfaced – a show recorded by Linkin Park but never released in any form. Along with this show, we are aware of several older shows that have had songs released by Linkin Park, but haven’t been released in full:

Partial shows released on singles:
2001-03-24 London, UK
2001-08-09 Wantagh, NY
2001-09-16 London, UK
2001-11-17 Tacoma, WA
2002-02-23 San Diego, CA
2003-02-27 Hamburg, DE
2003-03-11 Worcester, MA
2003-03-17 Detroit, MI
2003-08-22 Reading, UK
2004-08-13 Atlanta, GA
2004-08-18 Tampa, FL
2006-08-12 Osaka, JP
2006-08-13 Tokyo, JP
+ other undated performances from Ozzfest 2001, Family Values Tour 2001, LP Underground Tour 2003 and Projekt Revolution 2004.

With the DSPs, Linkin Park has only sold recent shows from the past few years (2007-2012). On the LP ARCHIVES: official tour bootlegs site (downloads.linkinpark.com), visitors see a list of “top 5” shows. Currently, the shows included in this list are New York City 2008 (the show featuring a surprise encore appearance by Jay-Z), Paris 2010 (the show featuring a surprise ‘A Place For My Head’ performance for Hybrid Theory’s 10th Anniversary), Berlin 2010 (the first show released with songs from A Thousand Suns), and Israel 2010 (the band’s first performance in the country). Obviously, the shows with more “importance” (like a special song, a song debut, a guest on stage, or the band’s first appearance in a country) are the shows which are purchased the most.

If you take a poll online, older tours like Projekt Revolution 2004 rank near the top of “favorite Linkin Park tours” with hardcore fans of the band and with the platform already there (downloads.linkinpark.com), the band has an outlet in which to release older shows to fans. Older shows contain highlights as well – Projekt Revolution 2002, for example, featured several guests during the show, a cover of ‘’My Own Summer’ by the Deftones and rare appearances of songs like ‘It’s Goin’ Down’ and ‘And One’. Additionally, the tour in Japan in 2006 featured ‘Reading My Eyes’ (only played live 8 times) and older shows (2001-2004) feature live songs which have never been released by the band like ‘Hit The Floor’ or ‘Forgotten’.

There should be no question about whether there is interest from Linkin Park fans, as the interest has been there for years (as you will see by the fansites listed below). A release of older LP shows would be very exciting for fans of the band and the band’s live performances. At the Incubus live site (http://incubuslivebootlegs.com), Incubus has a list of shows they recorded (even available in lossless formats) and fans can vote on which ones they want to be mixed and released. We are aware that a lot of shows are not able to be released due to contracts/restrictions by various groups like festivals, etc, but we do think there are at least a few older shows that could be mixed and released to the Linkin Park community. In conclusion, it would be great for fans to be able to enjoy some of these older performances by the band!

Thank you for your time,

Linkin Park Live – http://twitter.com/lplive
Linkin Park Fan Corner – http://twitter.com/LPFanCorner
The Linkin Park Association – http://twitter.com/LPAssociation
Mike Shinoda Clan – http://twitter.com/mikeshinodaclan
The Linkin Park Times – http://twitter.com/LPTimes
Wretches & Kings – http://twitter.com/WaK_Website
LinkinPark:Br – http://twitter.com/LinkinParkbr
Linkin Park México – http://twitter.com/LinkinParkMX
LP Revolution – http://twitter.com/lprevolution
BlackChester.de – http://twitter.com/BlackChesterde
Linkin Park BE – http://twitter.com/LinkinParkBe
[LP] Australia – http://twitter.com/LinkinParkAus
Bleeding Soldiers (Linkin Park Peru) – http://twitter.com/LinkinParkPeru
Soldiers Argentinos – http://twitter.com/Soldiers_Arg
Fuck Yeah Linkin Park

Personal note: Thanks to the staff from LP Live who not only wrote this open letter, but also managed to get all those fansites to work together on this. Well done, guys.

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