Linkin Park’s Hard-Rocking Set Proves Sweet but Too Short

“Do you guys think the whole jumping up and down thing is played out?”

That wasn’t a serious question from Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson at the Hollywood Palladium on Monday. And he needn’t have bothered prodding his band’s audience. Spontaneity was enough.

The crowd had already been jumping in place, crowd-surfing and fist-pumping for most of Linkin Park’s set. And fans sang along with a level of excitement normally reserved for veteran hard-rock acts, not newcomers.

If the Southern California act sometimes comes off on its debut album, “Hybrid Theory,” as just another breast-beating combo in the lucrative rap-metal race, on stage Linkin Park was never less than a jarring, intensely musical mix of volume and drama. At its best, the quintet approached the power and finesse of Deftones, a band that turns extreme aggression toward extremely melodic ends.

Fueled by thundering renditions of the radio hits “Crawling” and “One Step Closer,” fans looked ready for a full night of that kind of excitement. And Delson only seemed to be taunting the crowd playfully when he announced, “Seriously, we’re going to go home now,” to scattered boos, before adding, “We are home!”

Linkin Park rolled out one last taste of big modern rock, then the show was suddenly over, just an hour after it began, falling short of the lasting intensity well within Linkin Park’s reach.