linkin park took over Brisbane Entertainment Centre in Brisbane, QLD, this week as the band’s Australian run pushed nostalgia and reinvention into the same room. The shows unfolded in early March 2026, with the tour opening in Brisbane on March 3, 2026 and continuing through the band’s Brisbane dates, including a Thursday night billed as the second night of the city stop. The why was written on fans’ faces: a long gap since the last Australian shows in 2013, and a new chapter led by fresh music, a revived lineup, and co-vocalist Emily Armstrong.
Brisbane show opens with classics, then tests the room with new material
The Brisbane crowd was described as a “generational mix, ” drawn in by early-2000s nostalgia as they filed into the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. On Thursday night, the band began with the 2003 song “Somewhere I Belong, ” a choice that immediately triggered a loud, recognition-heavy response. “Crawling” followed, and Armstrong’s first big moment arrived early as she pushed into a higher vocal register, her effort visible as she leaned into the song’s intensity.
As the set moved through the catalogue, Armstrong approached the Chester Bennington-era material carefully, often allowing the audience to carry melody lines or leaning into the style of the original recordings. The show’s energy shifted, though, when the setlist moved away from the best-known songs. Even with linkin park touring behind From Zero, the crowd response was described as dipping during newer selections, pushing the band to work harder to lift the room back up.
Linkin Park spotlight: Emily Armstrong joins Shinoda, Farrell, Hahn, and Brittain on stage
On stage in Brisbane were Mike Shinoda, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, Joe Hahn, Emily Armstrong, and Colin Brittain. The band’s re-emergence comes after a seven-year hiatus, following Bennington’s death in 2017, with the current touring lineup bringing new music and a new vocalist into a legacy that many fans still tie closely to the earlier era.
The Brisbane performances also carried clear production ambition. “The Emptiness Machine” was framed as the night’s most precisely engineered sequence, with lasers reigniting in the bridge and pulsing in time to the lyric “I only wanted to be part of something. ” The lighting, backdrop visuals, and smokey pyrotechnics were credited with amplifying key moments, while the set also leaned on dramatic pacing—darkness, blue lasers, and an alarm-like sequence ushering the crowd into “The Catalyst. ” “Burn It Down” arrived with timed visuals of cascading sand to add extra weight to the track.
Setlist details: 27 songs, four acts, encore, and a Fort Minor moment
The opening night of the Australian leg in Brisbane on March 3, 2026 featured a 27-song set presented in four acts plus an encore. New material from From Zero sat alongside staples including “In the End, ” “Numb, ” and “Crawling, ” underlining the tour’s central balancing act: honoring the past while insisting the present counts.
Highlights cited from the Brisbane opener included Shinoda performing Fort Minor’s “Where’d You Go, ” a “When They Come for Me/Remember the Name” mash-up, and a Joe Hahn solo—moments that broadened the show beyond a straight run of band standards.
What’s next on the From Zero World Tour
The tour continues with arena dates in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, and Brisbane, keeping the band in large venues as it moves through Australia. In the near term, the key question is whether the mix of legacy tracks and From Zero material can keep the room consistently at full volume night after night—something the Brisbane response suggests will depend heavily on how the set is paced.
For now, the message from the ground in Brisbane is straightforward: linkin park is back on Australian stages, and the crowd is still loudest when the classics hit—while the band keeps pushing its new era forward in real time.
