Mike Shinoda: Linkin Park “Were the Only Band to Ever Prank Metallica” Onstage
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The post Mike Shinoda: Linkin Park “Were the Only Band to Ever Prank Metallica” Onstage appeared first on Consequence.
Metallica are considered an elite live act, and they take their craft seriously enough to release soundboard recordings of nearly every live performance.
In other words, Metallica mean business when they’re onstage, and few have dared to interrupt the thrash legends when they’re in the midst of a set — even for a good laugh. However, one band decided to push the envelope back in 2003… with the blessing of Metallica’s security.
Linkin Park vocalist/guitarist Mike Shinoda recently recalled a humorous anecdote about the time his band broke ground and became the first band to prank Metallica onstage. It happened toward the tail-end of Metallica’s “Summer Sanitarium” tour with Linkin Park.
“One of our claims to fame is that, at the time — we may still be the only ones — we were the only one to ever prank Metallica…” Shinoda told Australian radio station Triple M (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “So at the end of the tour… Their head of security was a guy who used who worked for us for a period of time. So we knew him… And we were like, ‘Hey, Tom, at the end of tours, a lot of times, people will prank each other. You think we could prank Metallica?’ And he was [James] Hetfield’s guy. And he’s, like, ‘Well, I don’t know if you know this, but that’s never been done. But I think I can work it out.'”
Shinoda continued, “And so the next thing the Metallica guys know, they’re in the middle of — I don’t remember what song, but they’re in the middle of it. And we came out with a blanket and a picnic basket and little, almost like lunch boxes and things. They had this platform behind them. Chester [Bennington] comes out. He has a skateboard. And we go up to the middle of it, and we pull out sandwiches and sodas, and we start having a picnic on their stage. And they’re doing, like, ‘Ride the Lightning.’ [People are] trying to take ’em seriously, and Chester’s literally skating back and forth behind them eating a sandwich.”
Lars Ulrich was a bit slow to the draw, Shinoda recalled, but it doesn’t appear that any feathers were too ruffled by the pop-up picnic.
“The guys in the band — I think Lars lost the plot entirely… They figured it out very [quickly]. ‘Cause nobody goes on stage with them. So they were, like, ‘What the hell’s happening?’ It was awesome.”
So far, Metallica’s ongoing “M72” tour has been a prank-free affair, with the band delivering massive career-spanning sets across two nights in each city, as we witnessed during the “No Repeat Weekend” New Jersey stop back in August. Next up are two shows in St. Louis on November 3rd and 5th.
Watch the interview with Shinoda and hear his story about Linkin Park pranking Metallica below.
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Mike Shinoda: Linkin Park “Were the Only Band to Ever Prank Metallica” Onstage
Jon Hadusek
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