I know for sure he never played guitar live for that song in the early years, but I think ever since M2M came out he started to. Does anyone know why he plays guitar now for that song? Not that its a big deal, just a question
I'd usually wait for Astat to answer this, but my reasoning is that they needed the song to sound heavier. If I remember correctly, during the M2M cycle, Brad changed his gear so he was able to play the new songs, and the result was that it didn't sound as heavy, so Mike took up rhythm guitar for it.
Over time, Linkin Park have gotten older and matured. The sound has changed. That's the answer to everything.
F**k, you got me. Anyway, adding onto all of that, I think it's Mike's rhythm guitar that creates what I call the "helicopter" sound which was part of the previous intro to "One Step Closer" that they used last year.
Originally it was because of the new intro they added to One Step Closer at the start of the touring cycle, which had 2 different guitar parts in it: |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |----------7--------------------------7-----------------| |-0--5*--x------8--7*--0-3---0--5*--x------8--7*--0-3---| |Guitar 1 | |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |-0--0-----------------------0--0-----------------------| |-0--0-----------------------0--0-----------------------| |-0--0-----------------------0--0-----------------------| |Guitar 2 |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |----------7--------------------------7-----------------| |-0--5*--x------8--7*--0-3---0--5*--x------8--7*--0-3---| |Guitar 1 | |-------------------------------------------------------| |-------------------------------------------------------| |---------------------------------------------------7---| |-0--0-----------------------0--0-----------------x-x---| |-0--0-----------------------0--0-----------------x-5---| |-0--0-----------------------0--0-----------------x-----| etc...it's not like Mike ever had a lot to do on that song vocally anyway either, so he might as well play guitar on it. It's pretty much the same reason he plays guitar on Given Up and From the Inside, nothing he plays in either of those songs is any different from Brad's part, but he'd have hardly anything to do on those songs otherwise.
You're probably thinking the synth loop in the intro is guitar, which it isn't. Mike and Brad play exactly the same things on that song, when Mike is actually playing. There's just a couple parts where Brad is playing by himself. Same goes for the other 2 songs.
So that's the same case as "Papercut", yeah? Save for there being no rhythm guitar, there's a synth loop that sounds like a lead. See, I picked it out in "Papercut" ... but, up until now, I thought the part in "From The Inside" was actually Brad.