In 2003, Metallica hit the road on the second and final edition of their Summer Sanitarium Tour, joined by aย veryย of-the-era roster of opening acts: Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Mudvayne andย Linkin Park. That last band’sย Mike Shinodaย recently guested on SiriusXM’sย The Howard Stern Show โย celebrating the impending 20th anniversary of Linkin Park’s smash second album,ย Meteoraย โ and looked back on the trek. In particular, he told the story of how he and his bandmates worked up the guts to prank Metallica during the middle of their set, when they were playing “Master of Puppets,” no less.
โNobody had ever pranked them onstage,โ Shinoda recalled, adding: โTheir show was always so tough and dark, and so we were like, โWhat would be the least tough, least dark thing to do?’โ
The answer? Have a picnic. โWe ended up going out with a picnic basket and like little sandwiches and drinks and Chester [Bennington] had a skateboard so he skated out onstage. And then we walked out on to their stage, and they were playing, I think, โMaster of Puppets,โ and we set up a picnic right above Lars [Ulrich].”
Shinoda noted that theyโd planned the gag with Metallicaโs head of security who โpromised he wouldnโt take us out.” Plus, Linkin Park knew Metallica โjust well enough to know that James [Hetfield] wasnโt gonna knock my teeth out,” according to Shinoda, and the prank went off without a hitch. โThe guys were laughing,” he said. “They were playing โMaster of Puppets,โ like, turning around laughing at us.โ