The Black Procession had come to Copenhagen, and after two wild warm-up acts in Bleeding Through and Hatebreed, we had now finally arrived at the band hosting this wondrous event; Machine Head.

I wrote in the review for Hatebreed that now Machine Head had something to live up to; it came as no surprise that they were up for the task!
They kicked off with the opener from the The Blackening album, Clenching The Fists Of Dissent, and directly from the start they showed us all why they were deemed headliner of the tour. The power and conviction was to be felt all over the concerthall, and it was immediately mirrored in the faces of all who had shown up.
The moshing was as wild as you would see around these parts, and from time to time it would reform into a circlepit, which in turn would dissolve into general jumping and headbanging which would complete the circle by going back to some more brutal moshpit action.
I on my hand felt so compelled to shout along to the songs I almost completely forgot to take notes to help me retell what went down; instead I must rely on my own sore throat as a reminder that this concert has been quite unparalleled in intensity so far this year.

It was great to see Phil Demmel back, as he had been absent on their visit during the The Black Crusade tour, and the entire band went missing when they should have visited with Children Of Bodom and Slipknot in 2008. I especially liked his polka-dotted guitar with matching effect pedal, very stylish. Speaking of guitars though, I was missing Robb Flynn’s custom red/transparent B.C. Rich Warlock (one fine-looking instrument if you ask me).
Both Flynn and Demmel had a good grip on the audience, where Demmel at several times smiled over to three very young girls who were rocking out by the side of the stage in the front-line. Adam Duce was a bit harder to follow as he kept mostly to the other side of the stage, but from what I saw he kept that part of the audience busy as well.

So far, 2010 seems to be a great year for concerts, and Machine Head definitely raised the bar for how things should go down from now on…

Setlist:

Clenching The Fists Of Dissent
Imperium
Beautiful Mourning
Spine
The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears
Days Turn Blue To Gray
Seasons Wither
Aesthetics Of Hate
Old
The Burning Red
Exhale The Vile
Bulldozer
Block
Halo
Davidian