Mike Shinoda admits it was "super super hard" organising Chester Bennington’s tribute concert.
The Linkin Park frontman tragically took his own life a year ago today (20.07.18), and the group’s co-founder has opened up about the challenges they faced preparing for the star-studded show at The Hollywood Bowl in October, and praised the guest acts, which included Blink-128, Korn and Avenged Sevenfold, for performing with little preparation.
Admitting the event took an emotional toll on him and his bandmates, the 41-year-old musician told NME: "It took six weeks of rehearsal to get to the point where we were ready to play the show.
"The exercise of rehearsing for that show, for all the guys. It was heroic; they were dedicated to finding the right people and getting them on the right songs.
"It was really great, but super super hard to do.
"Our longest set before that was 90 minutes, it was three hours, a marathon. We fell on the ground in the dressing room afterwards like ‘oh my god I can’t move’.
"All our brains were just mush."
Not only did they have to alter the vocal ranges for each individual to best suit their voice, but the band also felt a deep loss not having Chester up on stage with them.
Describing the performance as "mental gymnastics", Mike added: "The wide array of guest vocalists also meant that the bands were forced to ditch their tested ways and play songs in entirely different keys.
"It required relearning so much of our own material.
"It was like ‘this song we’re gonna play in a different key because this person sings higher, this song in a different key because this person sings lower’.
"This one I always play it this way, but they’re singing my part so I’m gonna sing the melody while playing piano. The mental gymnastics of it were hard, while I’m thinking this sucks doing it without Chester."
Linkin Park: The Chester Bennington tribute was super super hard
