LINKIN PARK AND MY CHEM TALK PROJEKT REV, FEST STARTS TONIGHT

Linkin Park’s Projekt Revolution kicks off today (July 25) in Auburn, Washington, and it features the visually oriented line-up of My Chemical Romance, HIM, Placebo, Mindless Self Indulgence, with Taking Back Sunday and others.

Projekt Revolution serves two purposes, to bring what Linkin Park feels is the best young talent to venues and to promote their latest album release, Minutes To Midnight. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda said that it’s important for them to make other bands feel welcome at Projekt Revolution.

“We’ve been on a lot of festival tours. We’ve been on a lot of tours with a lot of different acts over the years, and some of my favorite experiences were when we’d show up on the first day of the tour and — I’ve had this experience where the singer, we’re playing the first of five, and the singer from the headliner shows up completely unnecessarily and unannounced and we’re just there setting up our stuff for soundcheck — they go by and they say hello to everybody and ‘Welcome to the tour.'”

Shinoda doesn’t forget those tour headliners who helped Linkin Park feel comfortable through the years.

“When that happened… The first time that happened to me — I have to shout him out to becaust it’s Coby from Papa Roach that did it. We were opening up their tour, we were nobody, and he came around, he and Dave (Buckner) came around and said hi to everybody and ‘We really want you to have a good show, so if there’s anything you need you just let us know.’ How amazing is that?! And then five years later Metallica did the same thing. OK, if Metallica is doing it, come on. It’s something that’s… That’s the right way to handle it, and I think it pays off in the end for the fans.”

Projekt Revolution is one of the many in a crowded traveling tour market — not to mention weekend festivals — with Warped, OzzFest, and Family Values. We asked My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way how they plan to stand out from the crowd this summer.

“I don’t think it’s really a competition. I think all those tours are extremely different tours. We’ve done Warped, so that’s the only one that we’re super-familiar with out of that. But Ozzfest is solely metal, and Family Values it’s Korn. I don’t know who else they’re bringing out on it. The other tours there are some similarities with the bills, and what’s great about this one is that there’s not. The similarity in (the fans of the bands) I think the fans of all these bands are very passionate about music and very open to new things. I don’t think you can be into all the bands on Projekt Rev if you weren’t an open minded person. So I do think that it’s the variety in the bill that makes it different.So I don’t know if it’s a competitve thing per-se.”

Projekt Revolution also features Medina Lake, Julien-K, Saosin, The Bled and Styles Of Beyond. Projekt Revolution dates are currently scheduled through September 3 in Colorado. The band has also added dates this fall in Japan. Check out linkinpark.com for more info.