When the world lost Chester Bennington in 2017, it was hard to picture Linkin Park ever being able to return as a band, and yet here we are. After taking the time to heal and move forward, Linkin Park made their return in 2024 with most of the original band members reuniting, with the exceptions of Colin Brittain replacing Rob Bourdon on drums, guitarist Alex Feder touring in place of Brad Delson, and most notably, Emily Armstrong becoming the new lead singer of the band. The move has been seen as controversial to some, with Chester considered irreplaceable by many fans, while others have welcomed Emily’s effort to fill those shoes respectfully. Along with original members Joe Hahn on turntables/samples, Dave Farrell on bass, and Mike Shinoda still being the heart of the band on vocals, production, keys and rhythm guitar, Linkin Park has gone beyond simply having Emily cover Chester’s vocals on old songs, having released the new album From Zero in 2024 with Emily as the lead vocalist, and they’ve been on tour ever since.

The From Zero World Tour has seen the new-look Linkin Park perform in nearly every continent, having been on the road since Fall 2024 and scheduled for dates up into Spring 2026, making this comeback tour one of the biggest of the band’s career. For these summer months of 2025, they’re on a North American stretch of the tour, having kicked off this leg in Brooklyn, New York at the end of July and coming to Canada for shows in Montreal and Toronto in the first week of August. It was this same month in 2014 that Linkin Park performed their last show in Toronto with Chester, and fans willing to give the new lead singer a chance would get their long awaited opportunity to celebrate the music again more than a decade later on a Friday night at Scotiabank Arena.

Unlike most concerts that take place at Scotiabank Arena, where the stage is at one far end and several seating sections are blocked off, the From Zero Tour stage would be in the center of the arena, allowing every seat to be filled and the general admission crowd on the floor gathering in a circle around the stage. It also made the vantage points seem relatively equal across all sections of the arena, as each corner was an equal distance from the stage in the center. We got to the arena in time to catch the band opening for Linkin Park for this stretch of the tour, Pvris.

I’ll admit I wasn’t familiar with Pvris going into this show, but they did a solid job rocking the crowd. Consisting of lead vocalist/guitarist Lynn Gunn, along with a drummer and bass & keyboard player, Pvris had the crowd vibing out to their style of pop-rock music, getting the fans moving with a few bangers throughout their set. Lynn would take a moment to connect with the fans, speaking on how she grew up listening to Linkin Park and what it meant to be opening for them on tour. Pvris delivered a solid 40-minute performance before leaving the stage gracefully. There would be a break for Linkin Park’s gear to get set up on stage, and eventually a ten-minute timer would play on the jumbo screens, building up anticipation for the moment we had been waiting for.

An epic intro would play on the jumbo screens as each of Linkin Park’s band members graced the stage and took their places behind their instruments, and the crowd erupted when Mike & Emily joined them as the guitar riff from “Somewhere I Belong” played, with the band diving right into the Meteora single. Mike would pick up his guitar just in time for when the beat dropped, and we were all taken back to 2003 instantly. Linkin Park kept coming with classics, next going into “Lying From You” followed by a throwback for the day-one fans, “Crawling.” Emily would do a solid job covering Chester’s parts of the songs, her feminine touch suiting the lighter vocals nicely while also being able to project her screams similar to how Chester used to do. She’d of course leave a lot of gaps for the fans to shout out for her, getting everyone to join in on the chorus, with an especially loud response for “Crawling.”

After another Chester cover with the Transformers single “New Divide,” Linkin Park would perform the From Zero lead single they used to introduce Emily as the new lead singer, “The Emptiness Machine,” and she sounded especially in-pocket performing her own original vocals. Mike also got a big response from the crowd with his singing on the first verse, and he’d take a moment afterwards to thank the fans for their support of the new album. With the first few songs mostly being rock-oriented throwbacks, or new songs with that vintage feel to them, there would be a bit of an interlude before Linkin Park moved into a new segment focused heavily on the 2010s, when they moved into a more electronica/pop space with their music. For me personally, I started to lose interest in Linkin Park’s music when they changed their sound during this era, but the crowd stayed engaged throughout the performance as they went into songs off of 2010’s A Thousand Suns and 2012’s Living Things, with a few curveballs thrown in.

Mike would move over to the synthesizer and kicked off “The Catalyst,” singing his parts from behind the keys while Emily jumped in for Chester’s parts, and they’d bring back Pvris’ Lynn Gunn to help perform covers on the Living Things single “Burn It Down.” The band would sprinkle in another new song, letting Emily shine on the 2025 track “Up From The Bottom,” before Mike took a moment to check if there were any Fort Minor fans in the building. With Fort Minor of course being Mike’s outlet for his more Hip-Hop oriented music, he’d get to rap on the next couple joints, performing Fort Minor’s “Where’d You Go” and finding a way to blend it into Linkin Park’s “Waiting For The End,” Emily coming in after his verse to nail a soulful cover of Chester’s vocals on the song. After another 2012 hit with “Castle of Glass” that mellowed out the crowd, they’d pick the energy back up with the From Zero single “Two Faced,” which has all the elements of a vintage Linkin Park track, with heavy guitars, Mike rapping perfectly in-pocket, and Emily delivering a screaming bridge that called for a mosh pit.

Most of Linkin Park would walk off stage for a break, leaving Joe Hahn and Colin Brittain to go back and forth on turntables and drums respectively. Always known to blend genres, Mr. Hahn’s DJing would lead into a bit of a Hip-Hop segment of the show, with Mike returning to perform one of the highlights for me off of A Thousand Suns, “When They Come For Me.” This would be an extended performance, as Mike rapped the first verse, then took a moment to walk down to the crowd and trade hats with a lucky fan, giving them a hat signed by all the band members. He would make his way around the perimeter of the arena, greeting the fans and taking pictures as he continued rapping, and mid-way through his journey got into a performance of Fort Minor’s “Remember The Name,” getting the fans to join in on the hook and blending it into the instrumental from “When They Come For Me.”

After going around the entire arena and returning to the stage, the rest of the band joined Mike and they’d next move from the Hip-Hop to a scream-heavy segment of songs. Bridging the gap between the band’s newest music and their oldest, they’d pull out the certified mosh-pit starter off of From Zero, “Casualty,” with Emily absolutely slaying her vocals, followed by the day-one classic “One Step Closer.” Emily’s mic would cut off mid-way through “One Step Closer” but it didn’t matter, the fans were all locked in and shouting Chester’s lyrics with her.

There would be another interlude as crew members moved the layout of the drum set, keyboards and turntables on stage, rotating it so that fans on either side of the arena got an equal amount of time being either closest or furthest from them. The band would then make their return, first with Mike Shinoda playing solo on keyboard and joined by Emily to perform a song I wasn’t familiar with. This turned out to be “Lost,” an unreleased song Linkin Park originally recorded during their Meteora sessions but didn’t release until the album’s 20th anniversary edition in 2023. Emily would soulfully cover Chester’s vocals on the song, and the rest of the band joined in after the first verse to bring it all the way to life. I was originally expecting Mike’s keyboard solo to turn into the 2007 hit “What I’ve Done,” but the band would perform that two songs later, Emily again shining on From Zero‘s “Over Each Other” before getting the crowd’s help to cover Chester’s classic.

The next segment of songs would pull from Linkin Park’s more emotional pocket, with either Emily putting her incredible vocal range on full display or the fans all singing in unison in place of Chester. This would include another From Zero cut with “Overflow,” followed by the ’03 classic “Numb,” Mike covering some of Jay-Z’s raps on the “Numb/Encore” mash-up to introduce it. If there’s one Chester Bennington cover that Emily undeniably nailed, it would be “From The Inside,” as the vocal range Chester had on that song fit Emily’s pitch perfectly. Emily nailed the lightly sung verses of the song and seamlessly went into the screaming bridge and chorus, performing all the vocals and leaving no gaps for the fans to help her with.

Emily would only top herself on the next song, as the band picked up the tempo with the From Zero fan-favourite, “Heavy Is The Crown.” Another vintage-sounding track, Mike nailed his speedy raps and Emily absolutely shined on the bridge, nailing an extended heavy metal scream that could rival what Chester did on “Given Up.” With the energy now high, Linkin Park got the entire arena clapping to the beat as they performed “Bleed It Out,” the ’07 classic seeing Mike again spit some speedy raps while Emily covered Chester’s screams on the hook. They’d extend the song for a third verse, with Mike rapping his first verse from “A Place For My Head” over the “Bleed It Out” instrumental, and got an extra burst of energy doing the chorus an additional time, Mike extending his mic stand into the crowd to capture their singing.

While “Bleed It Out” is how Linkin Park closed out their show last time they were in Toronto, you knew an encore had to be coming with a few classics still left off the setlist. After pretending to leave the stage, a video interlude would bring the band back, and the crowd got turned up as they performed a day-one classic, “Papercut.” It felt like their Hybrid Theory album was getting a little neglected throughout the show, but they made up for it during their encore segment, next getting into arguably their most famous song, “In The End,” with the whole crowd helping Emily cover Chester’s parts of the song. Marking the true end of the concert, Linkin Park would wrap up with another Meteora classic, “Faint,” with Mike nailing the fast flow, Emily doing an admirable job covering Chester’s heavy metal screams, and Alex getting to shine with an extended guitar outro to the song. The fans cheered as Mike & Alex threw their guitar picks into the crowd, and while some hoped for another encore, the band would leave the stage for good.

Overall, it was a bittersweet moment seeing the new-look Linkin Park. On one hand, there’s no singer that can compare to Chester Bennington and you can feel the void left by not having him there, but having Emily Armstrong as the new lead singer is the next best thing we have to being able to celebrate Linkin Park’s music in a concert setting. While Emily especially shines on the new music they’ve released, her covers of Linkin Park’s older songs do them justice for the most part, as the band picked out songs that fit her vocal range, and her presence even elevates the energy of certain songs. In terms of the setlist, I liked seeing them lean into Meteora heavily while only doing the essential hits off their later albums, plus all my favourites off the new album. I would’ve wanted to see some more cuts off of Hybrid Theory, like a full performance of “A Place For My Head” or Mike Shinoda’s solo “High Voltage,” but that’s just nitpicking at a solid two-hour show that the band put on.

While the new album definitely has its bangers and Emily Armstrong slays when Linkin Park performs them live, the nostalgia of 2000 – 2003 was the biggest factor that made this a great show. Some fans hadn’t been able to see these songs get performed live in decades, while others were only now getting their first opportunity. With so much time having passed, it’s refreshing to see Linkin Park back on the road, even if we’re still getting used to the new look and feel of the band’s energy.

The From Zero World Tour continues through North America, followed by South America and Europe. Tickets and tour dates can be found here!

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