The Thrill of the Hunt
Review: The Hunting Party Tour stops in Indianapolis
In July 2014, Linkin Park released its sixth studio album, “The Hunting Party.” After taking the party across Europe with California metalcore band, Of Mice and Men, the band kicked off the U.S. leg of the tour in support of the record on Thursday in Orlando, adding Chicago’s Rise Against to the lineup.
On its third day, the Hunting Party stopped at Indianapolis’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The night’s openers, Of Mice and Men kicked off the night with a short, but fierce adrenaline-pumping set that got right to the heart of how the rest of the night would play out. Rise Against was added to the lineup due to overwhelming 
demand from Linkin Park’s fans, who, when polled listed them repeatedly as one of the top 5 bands they would want to see on tour with the band. One of the set’s highlights,Tim McIlrath took his guitar to the mic alone on the catwalk and gave the fans a very sweet acoustic rendition of the band’s hit “Swing Life Away” then brought the crowd back up to speed closing with “I Don’t Want To Be Here Anymore” and “Savior”.
With an original classified adaptation of Nu Metal and Rap Metal genres, Linkin Park treated the fans in attendance to their intensely unique style of layered mix as heard in ‘Hybrid Theory’ and ‘Meteora.’ Despite being in a cast thanks to a broken ankle, Chester Bennington and the band still delivered the raw energy that is to be expected from one of their shows. boasting a 25 song thick setlist broken down into three acts plus an encore, the night’s music was a healthy collection encompassing their almost 20 year history. Fans were treated to classics like “Numb”, “One Step Closer” and “In the End” and new favorites such as, “Given up” and “What I’ve Done” and tracks from their 2014 release, “The Hunting Party.”
Unfortunately, as a result of Chester’s injury, the Pittsburgh and Albany shows have been cancelled for now and the rest of the tour’s fate hangs in the balance. I must admit I don’t own any of the three bands’ records, but I am familiar with Rise Against and of COURSE I know who Linkin Park are. Surprisingly, I knew more of Rise Against’s music than I thought I did. I guess if you listen to Sirius’ Alt Nation channel all the time, you’re bound to hear every single that’s released. And despite not being the super huge mega fan like the 15,000+ in attendance, I was definitely looking forward to seeing Linkin Park; they are so electric and fun. Seeing Chester hobbling out on to the stage with crutches, right away I knew that he was NOT going to be running up and down the catwalk nor jumping off the risers. I can only imagine the pain he was in but I completely appreciate that he endured it to put on one HELL of a show. 25 songs. That’s incredible.