On October 28, 2001, Linkin Park played HSBC Arena in Buffalo as part of the Family Values Tour, a five-band arena package headlined by Stone Temple Pilots, with Staind, Static-X and Deadsy also on the bill. Hybrid Theory had turned a year old just four days earlier and “In the End” had gone out as a single that month, so the roughly 40-minute set was all muscle: ten songs from the album plus “Step Up” from the Hybrid Theory EP, opening with “With You” and building through “Papercut,” “In the End” and “Crawling.” For the closer, “One Step Closer,” Staind frontman Aaron Lewis walked out to share the song with Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda. Twenty-five years later, fan-taped audio and video from that Sunday night still circulate among collectors, a snapshot of Bennington’s voice at the moment it was becoming one of the most recognizable in rock.
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