Nu metal nostalgia just landed in a big way, Dutch festival Pinkpop has quietly dropped two full, pro shot sets from the movement’s most defining bands, Deftones and Linkin Park.
The footage gives fans a clean, high quality trip back into the era that shaped so many of us, they’ve uploaded Deftones’ full 2006 performance, an hour long snapshot of the band in their snarling, shapeshifting prime. Not long after, they followed it up with Linkin Park’s entire 2012 headline show, clocking in at a hefty ninety minutes. Both sets are now online in full, no grainy fan cam cuts, no missing songs, just proper archives from two eras of dominance.
A Snapshot of the Nu Metal DNA
Deftones and Linkin Park might’ve taken nu metal in wildly different directions, but they’ve long been seen as pillars of the genre. Deftones were already pushing boundaries by the time they arrived at their 1995 debut Adrenaline, one of the scene’s earliest releases, following Korn’s 1994 self titled. Both bands shared producer Ross Robinson, often dubbed the “godfather of nu metal”, whose fingerprints mark everyone from Slipknot to Limp Bizkit.
Linkin Park’s breakout came with 2000’s Hybrid Theory, a commercial nuke that ripped through mainstream radio and became one of the most successful albums in nu metal history, eventually hitting 12 times Platinum in the US and six times Platinum in the UK.
By the early 2000s, nu metal’s chart takeover had faded, but in recent years the pendulum has swung back hard. In June 2025, both bands proved their legacy still hits, Deftones played to 25,000 fans at London’s Crystal Palace Park, while Linkin Park packed out Wembley Stadium with 90,000 people.
The New Era
Both bands are currently Grammy nominated. Deftones’ new record Private Music is up for Best Rock Album, while Linkin Park’s From Zero, their first with new vocalist Emily Armstrong, is nominated for the same category, with ‘The Emptiness Machine’ also scoring a Best Rock Performance nod.
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