Linkin Parkmembers (from left to right) guitarist-songwriter Mike Shinoda, drummer Rob Bourdon, bassist Dave Farrell, leading vocalist Chester Bennington, guitarist Brad Delson and DJ-programer Joe Hahn. [Photo/China Daily]

For Zhao Yilin, the summer of 2000 was memorable. For the first time, Zhao, then 12 years old, listened to the songs of American rock band Linkin Park and was overwhelmed by their hybrid of rock, rap and electronic beats.

"Jay Chou (one of the biggest Taiwan pop icons) released his debut album that year. All my classmates were listening to his music. But I became a diehard fan of Linkin Park since then," says the 27-year-old Hunan native, who works at an advertising company in Beijing.

He will have another unforgettable summer this year because he will go to the Linkin Park concert in Beijing, which will be held at Beijing Workers' Stadium on July 26. As part of The Hunting Party world tour, the band will also perform in other cities around China, including Nanjing, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Chongqing in July.

"I am really excited that they will come to Beijing," says Zhao, who flew to Hong Kong in 2013 to watch the band's concert and bought the most expensive ticket at 1,288 yuan ($208). "It's a pity that I didn't get the most expensive ticket this year because the tickets sold out fast. But I believe being part of their live performance is fantastic."

The band members, who performed in Shanghai in 2007 and 2009, are also looking forward to performing in front of people who have never seen their live shows.

"We had a great time in China. We're looking forward to coming back and repeating that success and sharing our music with our massive fan base in China," says the band's DJ and programmer Joe Hahn in an interview with China Daily. "We're used to touring everywhere in Europe and Asia. Cultures may be different, but the fans are the same in terms of the universal emotion that they get from the music and what we get back from them."

Titled after the band's sixth studio album released in June 2014, The Hunting Party concert is set to feature songs from the new album, as well as the band's classics like Somewhere I Belong, Breaking the Habit and In the End.

Linkin Park performs at a concert of The Hunting Party Tour. [Photo/China Daily]

"Every song comes together differently. In the band, Mike (Shinoda) is definitely our principal songwriter when it comes to music. Mike and Chester (Bennington) do a great job collaborating lyrically. But we do have the openness and the ability for every band member to bring in ideas and have those be heard," says the band's bassist, David Farrell.

Founded in 1996 in California, the band has won two Grammy Awards and sold more than 60 million albums worldwide.

Having been together for nearly 20 years, the band continues to push boundaries: The Hunting Party is considered "the rawest, most aggressive album" Linkin Park has made in years.

"The trigger was when Mike switched gears about not wanting to write the songs that he'd been writing," the band's leading vocalist Chester Bennington says, "but instead decided to write heavy hard rock songs we had grown up listening to."

In China, the band has won a wider audience thanks to their songs used in both Transformers in 2007 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009.

According to Yong Le Live, a Beijing-based ticket company that joined with top live entertainment company Live Nation to launch Linkin Park's 2015 China tour, the total investment for this tour is about 80 million yuan and on the first day after the ticket presale was announced on May 7, the box office soared up to more than 24 million yuan.

The band founded Music For Relief in 2005, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing aid to victims of natural disasters and the prevention of such disasters. So far, MFR has raised more than $7 million for victims of various disasters across four continents. One US dollar of every ticket sold for the band's The Hunting Party Tour will be donated to the MFR fund.

The idea of MRF started from a desire to help in different areas that the band had seen following the Asian tsunami in 2004.

"We were touring in the region previous to that, and familiar with some spots we were seeing on TV when that happened. We wanted to figure out a way to mobilize not only ourselves, not only our fans, but hopefully the music community in general," Farrell says.

IF YOU GO

8 pm, July 22. Shanghai Hongkou Football Stadium, 444 Dong Jiangwan Lu (Road), Hongkou district, Shanghai.

7:30 pm, July 26. Beijing Workers' Stadium, Gongti Beilu (North road), Chaoyang district, Beijing.

Call at 4008-101-887 for tickets.