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For some, the hard rock band Linkin Park long ago passed its pop cultural relevance expiration date.

I’ll admit it; before Tuesday night’s Marcus Amphitheater show started up, one of those people was me. I wondered why a band, whose last seemingly notable moments came at the service of three-fourths of Michael Bay’s "Transformers" franchise, was a Big Gig Amp headliner. I wondered what Bob Babisch and company were thinking snagging what was in my mind an old, no longer hip nu metal group fronted by a lead singer with the decidedly un-metal name of Chester Bennington. And for Summerfest’s sake, I wondered if anyone would even really show up.

One large serving of crow, please, cooked medium rare.

For 90 minutes Tuesday night in front of an almost completely packed, fist-pumping Marcus Amphitheater crowd, Linkin Park demonstrated exactly why they were selected to Summerfest’s ultimate stage, powering through a surprisingly thick set of head-banging former hits that were as satisfyingly loud as they were contagiously convincing to a once dubious attendee. The collection of mostly bygone greatest hits may not have showed much from the present or future for Linkin Park, as an almost retrospective through the band’s previous glories, Tuesday night was a fabulously furious blast from the past.

After a quick jarring burst of sound and light punched any potentially sleepy crowd members wide awake, Linkin Park began its throwback hit parade with "Papercut" off of the band’s 2000 debut album "Hybrid Theory." The band followed its opener up one of the gig’s few dives into new material with "Rebellion" – which kept the crowd riled up if perhaps not singing along as much – before returning quickly into the past for "Given Up" off of 2007’s "Minutes to Midnight" and back to "Hybrid Theory" for "One Step Closer."

As yet another dip into fresh material – "A Line in the Sand" – was quickly followed by a trip to the past in the form of "From the Inside" and "Runaway," Linkin Park’s appeal was constantly made apparent.

There was Bennington, who always managed to surprise me when his harsh guttural screams erupted from his muscular but thin frame – while at the same time often providing a smoothness (say, on "Runaway") not found or expected in most metal music. He’s a diverse sounding frontman – able to scream, able to soothingly sing – in a band with a somewhat unappreciated diverse sound, hitting on hard rock, record-scratching hip-hop, anthemic arena rock and others. And as loud as the band got, the audio mix kept all the pieces in check, each one coming through clear and making its presence heard. It was loud done with finesse.

"Castle of Glass" provided a rare detour into 2012’s album "Living Things" – and a chance to angstily play a muddled audio clip of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s famous "I am death, the destroyer of worlds" quote. It was quickly back to hits, however, combining a quiet but escalating trifecta of "Leave Out All the Rest," "Shadow of the Day" and "Iridescent" that played satisfyingly like arena rock, just a touch angrier and complete with the crowd pulling out their lighters and cell phone lights. Once again, the band’s genre crossover capability was well on display and entertaining to behold.

After handing the floor over to turntablist Joe Hahn for a cool mini DJ set,  the band broke into one of its three "Transformers"-approved songs, "New Divide." The hit was oddly one of the low points, playing surprisingly chill, restrained and leaving the audience when it would finally pop. It never did, but Linkin Park almost immediately rebounded with the energetic and feverous "Breaking the Habit."

The metallic arena rock phase of the show continued into "Darker Than Blood" and the propulsive "Burn It Down" before handing the show over once again for a solo set – this time for Mike Shinoda, who busted out a duo of Fort Minor raps. "Remember The Name" was the hit of the two (if you don’t recognize the name, you’d recognize the song from almost any athletic movie training montage), while the new number "Welcome" may not have enough to be a hit, but still carried a strong beat.

Linkin Park proceeded to close out the night with a full-on final rush of hits (which there’s a good chance you’ve forgotten how many of the band’s songs you know or have at least heard). The strong six-song closing run opened up with "Numb" – a great song even without Mr. Beyonce Knowles’s help – before heading into "In The End," which had Shinoda craning his mic stand over the well-behaved mosh pit right in front to catch the audience loudly singing along. The vigorous "Faint" topped itself off with a strong guitar solo before going into "Waiting For The End" and "What I’ve Done," yet another good angry arena jam made even better when you don’t have to sit through a three-hour transforming robot alien movie to hear it.

"Bleed It Out" served as the finale, and it did so with aplomb, picking up the tempo and racing into the final stretch before the fuse on the band’s explosive night on stage finally burned out.

As far as interactions go, besides a few cordial greetings – well, cordial for a nu metal show – the band kept the chatting to a minimum. It wasn’t much of a problem, however, as the band left little room for down time, powering through song after song after "Hey, I remember this too!"-inspiring song. Their lack of talking didn’t represent a lack of interest either; throughout the show, Bennington roared back and forth constantly across the stage, reaching into the crowd for smiling handshakes and what looked like even the occasional small talk. In one moment, the lead singer went from a big grinning handshake with a crowd member to quickly turning around to howlingly scream his part. It was actually rather charming. And no, there was no encore after "Bleed It Out," but really everything you wanted to hear at a Linkin Park show made its way on stage.

Going into a show for a band I may not love, my baseline hope is to see and hear what the fans see and hear in the performers on stage. Even if I don’t love them, I at least want to see why others would. And at the end of Tuesday night’s show, that’s exactly what happened: A skeptic walked in, a fairly rekindled one-time fan walked out. 

As for openers, the crowd didn't seem to know what to do with PPL MVR and stayed mostly seated. In all fairness, it's hard to blame them. I mean, what other reaction do you give a trio of rockers dressed in deranged Chewbacca suits and platform shoes shredding apocalyptic metal with modulated autotune vocals that also may or may not be the band Brand New in disguise. The music was good and growly, but between the giant yetis and falling down the "PPL MVR is Brand New" conspiracy black hole, it was hard to notice.

A Day To Remember had much better luck, immediately shooting the crowd up to its feet on their first punk metal number. None of their harshly howled numbers hugely stuck out from the pack, but boy, do they put on a show – confetti, smoke eruptions, more confetti, exploding water bottles and spitting water into the air and beach balls. Plus: a cameo from a lucha libre mask wearing Spider-Man tossing t-shirts into the crowd. So there was that.