Linkin Park countdown starts counting back up, everybody confused

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You waited a hundred hours, now you may need to wait a hundred more

Linkin Park - Meteora
(Image credit: Press)

The online countdown that Linkin Park launched over the weekend is now counting back up.

On Saturday (August 24), the nu metal stars began a 100-hour countdown on their website and social media channels, with many fans hoping that the news at the end of the wait will be the band reuniting.

Instead, once the clock expired this evening (August 28), it started counting back upwards, possibly to 100 hours again. People are a bit perplexed.

“????/ WHAT” prominent influencer Nik Nocturnal replied when Linkin Park published footage of the clock restarting to X (formerly Twitter). “Why is it counting up funny man” another user asked, their annoyance almost tangible.

Another grumbled, “Okay, if you teased an announcement date... but it's actually just revealing an actual announcement date... this is the dumbest, most unfriendly to fans reveal strategy of all time.”

Linkin Park unofficially deactivated shortly after frontman Chester Bennington took his own life in July 2017, aged 41. The band played a tribute show to the late vocalist the following October but haven’t performed live since.

Rumours of a comeback began in April, when Orgy singer Jay Gordon, a former collaborator, said in an interview that Linkin Park will be reactivating with a female vocalist replacing Bennington. He later retracted his claims. Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee denied that she was the vocalist in question.

A month later, Billboard reported that Linkin Park were hoping to return for a 2025 tour and festival shows. One source told the publication that the reunion would be with a female singer.

Speculation about a reunion reignited when Linkin Park started their countdown. US festival Welcome To Rockville shared the initial social media post in their Instagram stories, sparking hopes that the band will be back to play live in 2025. Vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda had previously told Revolver that, if Linkin Park were to return, the announcement would be made on their website.

“When there’s an announcement to be made, it will be on LinkinPark.com,” he said. “If you’re hearing it from somebody else, you can trust that information as much as you want to trust it.

Fans also theorised that the band would be returning with Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 on vocals, as the singer/guitarist teased his own announcement for today. However, Whibley quickly denied the rumours and postponed his announcement, which is to do with his upcoming memoir Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven And Hell, to the end of the week.

Linkin Park released a compilation album, Papercuts (Singles Collection: 2000–2023), in April.

Matt Mills
Matt Mills
Contributing Editor, Metal Hammer

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.