The idea and execution of hologram tours have been divisive from the moment that they started cropping up. From Tupac at Coachella to ABBA's Voyage and even Ronnie James Dio, there's something about them that doesn't sit right with a lot of musicians. One of them is Mike Shinoda, who has reassured fans that we will never see Linkin Park touring with one of Chester Bennington.
Talking to 94.5 The Buzz, Mike had this to say (Transcribed by Metal Injection): "Those are creepy. Even if we weren't talking about us, if we weren't talking about Chester, which is...that's a very sensitive subject, and we would have our feelings about how we would represent that. For me, that's a clear no; I'm not into that. But even as a viewer of, like, just a fan of another band — like I heard ABBA, for example, they're doing a hologram show, and they're still alive.
"Then you get to have an opinion about it based on, they're all still here, and yet they wanna do it this way because they wanna transport you back to that moment in time where those songs were new, and it was whatever era it was. I get that; I see that. I'm not positive, even under those circumstances, I'm not positive I personally would buy a ticket to the show. But [other people] would. That's fine."
He continues by stating that he isn't telling people not to like holograms just because he doesn't. Everybody is allowed to enjoy whatever they want to.
"The problem with the Internet now is that everybody thinks that everything is for everybody. And what I mean is everyone feels like they need to chime in, like, 'Well, here's my opinion. This is what I have to say. And if it's not for me, like if I don't like it, then nobody should like it.' That's not the way the world works. If you like a thing and I don't like the thing, then you go see the thing; you go buy the thing."
Mike also recently spoke to Howard Stern about the band's classic track In The End and the misconception that Chester hated it.
"He didn't hate it. No, no, no, no. That's actually a misconception. Some people think that he hated the song. He liked the song, he just loved really heavy stuff, and so when people were like, 'This should be a single', he was like, [shrugs], 'Ah, whatever!' It's not the one that he would have chosen."
Linkin Park are currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of their second album Meteora, with a very special deluxe box set being released on April 7. You can pre-order it from right here, and check out their stunning previously-unreleased track Lost below.
