Live Review: Linkin Park & Stone Sour

Stone Sour was the perfect choice of support for Linkin Park. Corey Taylor, the band's charismatic – albeit sweary – frontman worked extremely hard and had the crowd firmly in his hand. With their heavy alternative rock incorporating the brutal riffs of metalcore, the intensity of their set only let up for a brief respite when Taylor strapped on a guitar and dropped a couple of hands-in-the-air singalongs that the crowd seemed to relish.

Linkin Park have always delivered a fairly epic live show and five studio albums into their over 15-year career, the fire has clearly not dimmed one iota. Mike Shinoda, Linkin Park's resident multi-instrumental guru, was the first to take the stage and spent the night trading vocal duties with Chester Bennington. For a little while around album number three, Shinoda was being given less to do vocally, but the band's balance is at its best when Bennington has a counterpoint. And not just vocally – Shinoda seemed to be the calm in the alt-rock storm as Bennington spun, ran and jumped his way around the stage. Elevated and off to the side, Rob Bourdon behind the kit was a machine, punching out near perfect beats for his bandmates to layer over with squalls of guitars and Joe Hahn's nifty tricks on the decks.

Linkin Park have always had a knack for writing hit singles so their live set essentially works as a greatest hits package these days. Several new songs were given an outing, including Lost In The Echo, which fitted well into the set. Burn It Down, the big new single, introduced the encore before the band dropped the intense double act of In The End and Bleed It Out.

Sticking around to applaud the audience and take several curtain calls, Linkin Park really seemed to enjoy themselves. They weren't the only ones.