ESPN has given a quick recap of Linkin Park’s Friday along with some quotes from Chester and Mike. Mike talks about Linkin Park’s “Green Guitar” project.

It was a long day for Linkin Park on Friday as members Joe Hahn, Mike Shinoda and Phoenix Farrell spent the early evening with the Los Angeles Dodgers throwing out the first pitch against the New York Mets.

And then they joined the rest of the California rock band for a private concert Friday night at Club Nokia at L.A. Live as part of a new initiative for the X Games brand — X Games MUSIC. In fact, Mr. Hahn wore his Dodgers jersey on stage.

Starting next year, X Games MUSIC will serve as a component of each Global X Games event, pairing unique action sports-influenced musical acts alongside X Games events in Aspen, Colo.; Tignes, France; Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil; Barcelona, Spain; Munich, Germany; and Los Angeles.

Linkin Park hit the stage in front of a thousand fan-club fans and sponsors at 11:35 p.m. Pacific and played for 90 minutes. They started the show with some of their biggest songs and then went into their fifth studio album, “Living Things,” which was released this week. The album will hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts next week.

Lead singer Chester Bennington’s voice was strong. While Shinoda and some bandmates were greeting fans backstage an hour before the show, Bennington was screaming in the dressing room to get his voice ready. The 36-year-old Bennington was telling jokes throughout the set, including talking about the fans sitting in the balcony.

“I like you guys up there sitting down,” Bennington said. “I’d be doing that too. I’m an old dude.”

Shinoda, who helped produced “Living Things” with legendary record producer Rick Rubin, thanked fans for their support and focused on social media throughout the set. The show was live streamed on Myspace and will be available all Saturday.

And Shinoda also talked about Linkin Park’s Green Guitar Project. When the band begins its national tour in August, Shinoda said the band will be using “pieces of musical magic.”

“We’ll be using guitars that had wood sitting in landfills and going nowhere,” Shinoda said. “We are looking at getting into the business of people sending in your guitars and we’ll fix them, and they will never, ever leave this earth!”

Mike’s old friend Bobby Hundreds has given his insight on the new LP album and Linkin Park. Great words I might add. Go HERE to read the article and see the pictures he posted.

Catching up with the news here, here’s a review of Michael Coll of rockaaa.com reviewing his overall experience at Italy’s Sonisphere and giving us a report of what’s going on backstage. Well, this guy was lucky enough to bump into Chester in an elevator! Crazy isn’t it. You guys know I don’t usually post reviews but I absolutely loved this one and the way it was delivered.

Linkin Park’s presence had been felt backstage all day, as their very, very large bodyguards patrolled the dressing rooms, press and catering areas, keeping a constant eye on everything and everyone.

Intimidating as they seemed, I happened to be sat opposite them at lunch and we got talking. They turned out to be great guys and a few hours later one of them patted me on the back and called me ‘bro’ as we passed each other in a corridor… I felt like I had been accepted into the giant-guy club as mostly everyone else who crossed this guy’s path received little more than a stern, slightly menacing gaze.

When the band arrived, fate would have it, I ended up in an elevator with Chester Bennington. I have been fortunate enough to meet more rock stars than I can remember over the past few years, however very few have the gravitas, presence and star quality that you would expect. Chester definitely has those qualities. Even if you had never heard of, or seen Linkin Park, you would know this guy was a rockstar just by being in his presence. We had a quick exchange, a shake of hands and he was swept away amid a sea of entourage. For the record, he came across as a really nice, pleasant and respectful guy.

Upon taking the stage, Linkin Park instantly had the crowd in the palm of their hands. The set comprised of mainly the hit singles that have spanned the band’s 10 year career, along with 2 newer tracks which went down extremely well with crowd. The light show and sound quality was, as always, totally awesome and as they finished their set, the atmosphere at Sonisphere Italy was supercharged.

The band exited stage left to a waiting limousine and was whisked away into the night, like the untouchable rock gods that they have become.

Now, let’s look back at Linkin Park’s set in Munich, Germany on June 25th.

Setlist

1. The Requiem
2. Papercut
3. Lying From You
4. Given Up
5. What I’ve Done
6. Empty Spaces
7. When They Come For Me
8. No More Sorrow
9. Jornada Del Muerto
10. Waiting For The End
11. Burning In The Skies
12. Numb
13. The Radiance
14. Breaking The Habit
15. Fallout
16. The Catalyst
17. Crawling
18. Faint
19. One Step Closer
20. Wisdom, Justice and Love
21. Iridescent
22. Blackout
23. New Divide
24. In The End
25. Bleed It Out (Reading My Eyes verse & A Place For My Head verse)

‘Reading My Eyes’ verse is definitely a big deal. Lucky German fans!

Also, I didn’t find many pics, only one. Pics that have circulated around with the tag mnphotography.de are NOT from Munich, but Oberursel.