Linkin Park again open for fervent fans

Spencer Patterson

Monday, June 30, 2003 | 8:13 a.m.

That night the extreme sports moved indoors to The Joint, where wildly enthusiastic fans greeted rap-rockers Linkin Park by jumping up and down continuously through the band's first two numbers.

The feat was impressive, especially so considering many in the crowd of 1,800 had been queued up for hours, lining the casino's circular walls and spilling out of its main entrance onto the sidewalk beyond.

The concert -- which ran in conjunction with the venue's three-day Boost Mobile Pro of Skateboarding event -- sold out in a matter of minutes last month.

Anticipation among Linkin Park's army of fans was heightened when singer Chester Bennington's recent illness forced the band to postpone 12 European dates.

Shortly after 11 p.m., Bennington gave the first sign his health has improved, bounding onstage with his five mates and launching into "Don't Stay," the first track on the band's recently released second album, "Meteora."

The notoriously road-hardened musicians -- who played 324 shows in their breakout year of 2001 alone -- didn't try to hide their obvious glee at being back on familiar footing. Even while delivering their heavy brand of music, emcee Mike Shinoda and guitarist Brad Delson flashed lots of smiles at their fans.

Linkin Park has a lot to smile about. The Los Angeles-based band's debut album, "Hybrid Theory," was 2001's top seller with 4.8 million CDs sold. March's follow-up debuted at No. 1 and remains solidly in the Top 20 now, 21 weeks later.

Beginning Friday, the band will join Limp Bizkit, the Deftones and Mudvayne as support acts for Metallica's "Summer Sanitarium" tour.

For most of the night, you wouldn't have guessed Linkin Park's Vegas set was a pre-tour warmup. The howling Bennington and rhyming Shinoba led the band through charged versions of current hit "Somewhere I Belong" and the older "Papercut" early in the show.

His head thrashing in a frenzy even as he calmly scratched records, DJ Joseph Hahn added a variety of interesting sounds to otherwise standard rap-metal arrangements.

Perhaps on the upcoming tour (which does not have a scheduled Las Vegas date), the band will consider building a solo piece for Hahn into its show. That would have been welcome on Friday, though Bennington was clearly the man of the hour.

"Chester's been sick a little bit, but this (show) is the best way to welcome him back to the stage," Shinoba announced during a break in the action.

Bennington directed his response to the crowd: "Your guys' energy alone will make me enjoy the show."

Ironically, the audience's energy began to wane noticeably not long after that statement, as the band tried material rarely played, with rather uneven results.

A long, meandering rendition of a cut from last year's "Reanimation" CD took the Park into arty, borderline-prog territory they'd be better off avoiding. And a first-ever stab at "Numb" resulted in a false start and a hastily aborted finish.

"This is about as punk rock as we get," Bennington joked after the song broke down the first time.

Late in the show, fans were rewarded for their patience with the three big hits off "Hybrid Theory:" "Crawling," "One Step Closer" and the band's most memorable song, "In the End."

During the latter, Shinoba descended into the crowd and urged the sea of people around him to sing into his microphone. They responded with a final, intense round of jumping, before heading out, no doubt to find their next adrenaline rush.