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Womit auch ein großes Minus der Veranstaltung angesprochen wäre : Nach rund eineinhalb Stunden ist das Konzert schon vorbei. Keine Zugaben, keine starken, aber weniger bekannten Titel für die Linkin-Park-Feinschmecker. Und nicht nur das : Zwischendurch wechselt die komplette Musiker-Besetzung bis auf Bennington auch noch, der dem verdutzten Publikum anschließend ” meine neue Band ” präsentiert. Drei Titel spielen ” Dead by Sunrise ” – das ist zuviel, angesichts des kurzen Linkin-Park-Programms.

Von Freie Presse

Dass die Stimmung vor der Bühne nicht recht auf die Ränge und die gesamte etwas tiefer gelegte Arena überzugreifen vermag, liegt vielleicht auch an der Weitläufigkeit des Geländes, in dem sich die Besucher bis auf die ersten Reihen nie zu nahe kommen. Die Bandmitglieder tun freilich auch nicht viel, um Kontakt zu den Fans herzustellen, konzentrieren sich ganz auf ihre Musik, ihr eigenes durchkomponiertes Programm. Zwei kurze “danke” müssen als Ansprache genügen. Vielleicht hat Sänger Chester Bennington auch den Schwerpunkt mental derzeit auf sein neues Bandprojekt Dead by Sunrise gesetzt, deren erstes Album Anfang Oktober erscheinen soll. Eine Kostprobe gab es bereits in Ferropolis. Höflich beklatscht, keinesfalls aber frenetisch gefeiert. Dead by Sunrise sind leiser als Linkin Park, melancholischer. Auffälligster Unterschied: die Rap-Elemente, die den unverwechselbaren Crossover-Sound Linkin Parks ausmachen, fehlen. Das neue Projekt wirkt wie eine konsequente Weiterentwicklung in die musikalische Richtung, die Linkin Park zuletzt eingeschlagen haben, die von den Fans aber nur bedingt mitgetragen wird. Spürbare Erleichterung, als nach ein paar Liedern von Dead by Sunrise – die offenbar als eine Art Verschnaufpause akzeptiert werden – Linkin Park wieder die Bühne betreten. Doch die Abschlussvorstellung fällt kurz aus. 90 Minuten solide Kost – davon nur zirka 75 Minuten als Linkin Park – an der die Fans weniger zu knabbern haben, als den meisten lieb sein kann. Im Gänsemarsch bricht die seltsam unaufgewühlte Menge zu ihrem halbstündigen Fußmarsch zurück zum Parkplatz auf, wo das Chaos an der nadelöhrgroßen Ausfahrt für die einzige wirkliche Aufregung an diesem Abend sorgt.

With day one drawing to an end, everyone was waiting for Linkin Park to finish off the day nicely. Playing a selection of hits from their three albums including ‘Faint’ and ‘Crawling’, it struck us how much we were looking forward to album number four. Then, to everyone’s surprise, lead vocalist Chester invited his new band up onto the stage. He wanted to give the UK a preview of this new band Dead By Sunrise.
A look of dismay was across everyone’s faces. Fans were here to see Linkin Park. So, was this a bad move from Chester? We’ll soon find out in September, announcing to the crowd that’s when his “new band” would be touring. Thankfully, it didn’t drag for too long until Linkin Park arrived back on stage and ended their roaring set with their dedicated fans supporting them.

From inthenews.co.uk:

After a crowd-pleasing Bullet For My Valentine close the Saturn Stage for the night with a collection of metal tunes that has the a sea of bodies singing along to every word of the Welsh quintet’s barnstorming set, Linkin Park round things off for the Apollo Stage, putting in a solid, if unspectacular, performance. Given Up and Somewhere I Belong are particular highlights early on, before Crawling and In the End drag things out of something of a mid-set lull. Bizarrely, vocalist Chester Bennington brings his side project, Dead by Sunrise, out for the encore, in a move which seems to win scant approval from festival-goers and is seen by many as an abuse of power rather than the special event that it will no doubt be pedalled as. Thankfully, Linkin Park do re-emerge for the second encore, finishing off with a superb One Step Closer.

From easier.com:

Early evening saw a fleet of blacked out vans pulling into the production area, and a strict no-smoking policy enforced in the back stage area, as clean-living headliners Linkin Park arrived on-site. Taking the stage to a chorus of cheers, the Californian sextet dealt out hit after hit as the sun set over Knebworth Park. Frontman Chester Bennington used the Apollo stage appearance to debut his new project “Dead By Sunrise” to UK rockers, who performed as part of Linkin Park’s encore to a rapturous reception, ending the main arena activity on Sonisphere day one.

From Music Radar:

So then to the Apollo stage and day one’s biggest draw: Linkin Park. In the weeks before the festival, Chester Bennington talked a very good game, promising to “kick some ass” and possibly even come away clutching the Best Live Band In The World title belt.

Sadly, the execution is lacking and the set sags horribly in the middle. When the hits come out they sound dated and the absolute nadir sees Bennington drag his Dead By Sunrise side project onstage for an encore that no-one in the crowd seems to be shouting for. They proceed to rattle through an incredibly lame Nirvana rip-off before being sucked into an ego vortex visible from space.

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He took that idea to the design firm Polychrome, and was very pleased with the results. “[They] really took my words and kind of started coming up with these amazing surreal shots and concepts for the album artwork and they were the ones who developed the idea for this black void, which the cloth that you see on the front kind of represents death in a way and how it is chasing us down through the artwork,” he said.

That collaborative spirit is also a metaphor for the album, which began as a solo project, before he became so impressed with the ideas presented by close friends and former Orgy members Ryan Shuck and Amir Derakh that he handed over free reign to the pair to experiment with his songs. The result is Dead by Sunrise, a joining of Bennington and the electornic/rock group Julien K, led by Shuck and Derakh.” I was blown away by how their style and their kind of turn and twist on the music had taken the songs,” Bennington said.