Linkin Park Set To Capture New Fans At Rocklahoma Music Festival This Weekend

Linkin Park will play Oklahoma’s Rocklahoma music festival for the first time ever. It’s a new step for Linkin Park and for Rocklahoma’s growing audience. The festival is in its ninth year and is expecting 70,000 people over three days. Linkin Park will be the closing act on Saturday night, taking the stage at 10:40 p.m.

The Oklahoman reports how Linkin Park represents a transformation of Rocklahoma’s original intent to present 1980s hair bands, such as Pantera, Cinderella, and Twisted Sister, into something more appealing to a wider range of rock fans. The organizers have worked to break from their nostalgic origins.

As reported here on the Inquisitr, Linkin Park knew they would lose fans with the new direction Hunting Party took. That last album was a much harder sounding Linkin Park effort. But being invited to events like this only shows how that new direction opened more doors, even if the album wasn’t universally praised by critics and fans.

Linkin Park is looking forward to the new experience of playing the growing annual event. The band like the vibe and audience of an outdoor festival compared to the arena shows they often play.

Linkin Park told the Oklahoman how much they are looking forward to Saturday’s stage performance.

“That’s one of the coolest parts about a festival in general. There’s such a big and broad lineup usually, that you can expect to play for people who might not normally come out to your concert, might not normally come out to your show, or maybe they’ve never gotten a chance to see you. That makes it kind of reinvigorating for us, makes it exciting and definitely something to look forward to.”

Rocklahoma is already in progress. Pre-festival performances started yesterday. The festival plays over Memorial Day weekend before concluding on Sunday. Event attendees can camp on the Catch the Fever festival grounds of Pryor, Oklahoma, as they watch their favorite rock acts. Linkin Park will play alongside Slayer, Papa Roach, Volbeat, Tesla, and over 80 others.

– @Rocklahoma / @RCRockFest see you this weekend: https://t.co/jj1ZhnVvpV

— LINKIN PARK (@linkinpark) May 21, 2015

Festival organizers are prepared to deal with any potential security issues a festival of this size might present. Emergency preparations are in place if the Oklahoma weather starts to misbehave.

Linkin Park just came back from the first U.S. edition of Brazil’s Rock in Rio. The Los Angeles Times reported how even just the rock portion of the festival drew a crowd of 82,000 with bands like Metallica and No Doubt. Next, Linkin Park heads to China for a five-stadium tour in July.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]