LINKIN PARK has launched a mysterious 100-hour countdown timer on its web site and official social media accounts. The same countdown timer was shared by the Instagram account of Welcome To Rockville, fueling speculation that some of the band’s surviving members will perform at next year’s edition of the Danny Wimmer Presents-produced festival, set to take place May 15-18, 2025 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
The countdown timer is scheduled to end on Wednesday, August 28 at 11:00 a.m. PDT.
This past May, Billboard reported that LINKIN PARK was considering a possible 2025 reunion tour with a female vocalist stepping in for late lead singer Chester Bennington.
LINKIN PARK‘s booking agency WME was reportedly taking offers for a potential tour along with headlining festival dates that would feature Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson and Dave Farrell, Billboard‘s sources said.
One of the sources told Billboard that LINKIN PARK was hoping to find a female vocalist to front the reunited band, a rumor which was first started in April by ORGY frontman Jay Gordon who mentioned during a radio interview that he had “heard” that LINKIN PARK was working with a “girl singer now”. When pressed, Gordon continued by saying: “Don’t quote me on that. I’m not sure who the singer is going to be, but I heard it was gonna be female. They might just try to move on like that. That ought to be interesting.” Jay later seemingly walked back his comments, writing in a Facebook post that he knew “nothing about any of that” and accused “people” of taking his words “out of context.”.
In April, EVANESCENCE‘s Amy Lee was asked about the some LINKIN PARK fans’ desire to see her step in as the replacement for Bennington. “That is an incredible compliment,” she said after being told that she was a fan favorite to fill the slot. “I have not heard that. No, I have not been contacted [by LINKIN PARK] or anything like that. But [I’m a] huge fan feel like our worlds, our fanbases are a lot of the same people.”
She continued: “That’s really sweet. We never… Well, did we play shows [together]? I don’t know if [EVANESCENCE and LINKIN PARK] were on a festival together or whatever. We met. We were in the studio at the same time. When we were making ‘Fallen’, I just briefly got to have a conversation or two with Chester. He was really sweet.
“But no, it’s not true,” she clarified in regard to the rumors that could be LINKIN PARK‘s new singer. “But that’s awesome. They should ask me about that. I don’t have a ton of free time, but I might do it part time.”
In April, LINKIN PARK released a career-spanning greatest-hits album, “Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023)”. The record also features a previously unreleased track with Bennington, “Friendly Fire”, which was recorded during the sessions for the group’s final studio album, 2017’s “One More Light”. Bennington died later that year.
Around the time of “Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023)”‘s release, Shinoda downplayed the possibility of a LINKIN PARK reunion, telling Revolver magazine: “Rumors always go around. People always ask what’s next for the band, and the best answer I can ever give anybody is when there’s something to tell you, we will tell you. When there’s an announcement to be made, it will be on LinkinPark.com. If you’re hearing it from somebody else, you can trust that information as much as you want to trust it.”