Note: Due to restrictions from Machine Head’s management, no photographers were allowed at the concert. Hence, the photos you see here are photos taken from Lunah Lauridsen’s archives from 2012.

On their tour promoting the new Bloodstone & Diamonds album, Machine Head swung by Copenhagen for a visit. As it had been a few years since the last visit, excitement about the gig ran pretty high, and it didn’t take long for the tickets to show the “only few left” reminder.

“Copenhagen, will you sing with us!?”
- Robb Flynn (vocals/guitar)

In a possibly filled, or at least close to it, and warm Vega, the stage was prepped for Machine fuckin’ Head to take it away. No one was left wondering who they were about to see, because the band had invested in so many logos, that they had then decorated the stage with, one would think they had been on a Black Friday sale or something! There were flags, banners, plaques and god knows what else, and if you could distract from the fact that it seemed a bit over the top to have the MH square symbol decorate nearly everything in sight, it did make for a pretty cool stage setup.
Lights out, intro music on, lights back up, and the band emerged and dove straight into Imperium – the band was lit, and the crowd went mad! As the band delivered a crushing first song of the evening, the Copenhagen fans erupted in shouting, jumping, and a wild circle pit! I’d say we were off to a pretty damn good start.

After last years’ departure of the final remaining original member except for Flynn, Adam Duce, Machine Head had greeted Jared MacEachern into their folds as their new bassist. MacEachern might be known to some from the thrashy metal band Sanctity where he acted as vocalist and guitarist until 2008 on account of becoming a father, and later he has in addition to Machine Head joined another thrash metal band called Serenity Dies. Most importantly though, he looked like a really good match for the Machine Head crew, and fell in naturally and comfortably with the rest of the guys in the band.
Overall, the band was really kicking some Danish ass this evening – with great contact they made it far beyond the edge of the stage, and while not literally hanging off the edge of the stage there was a lot of headbanging going on. If anything, the three front guys weren’t much for moving about, and MacEachern and Phil Demmel only switched sides a couple or so times during the show. Still, they did manage to get a few poses in together as they passed each other, and Flynn also got to play along a bit when not tied down to the microphone.

The Danish crowd certainly wasn’t tied down to anything – up on the balconies people were seen hanging halfway across the rail just to headbang wilder, and down on the floor circle pit after circle pit made the beer-stained floor a slippery mess of destruction. A wall of death was well executed in Ten Ton Hammer, proving that we also had that discipline down, all while crowd surfers kept the smiling security guards busy.
Singing/screaming along was mostly kept to the classic live staples, but one that really got to the band was the “oh oh” ending to Darkness Within, which almost saw Flynn squeeze out a tear of pride and enjoyment.
There was one other thing that had nearly the same effect, something that Flynn said we were probably the only ones doing – the Machine fuckin’ Head stomp! As people were all chanting the well-known words, they were at the same time stomping the floor so hard it vibrated, and it didn’t fail to catch the attention of the band which held a short break to let the phenomena flourish on its own for a while.

“You are here listening to four human beings, not some fucking laptop and a dude!”
- Flynn (vocals/guitar)

If I should beat down on one thing that pulled down the overall effectiveness of the show, it would have to be the constant black outs where the band left the stage for whatever reason – doing so before the encore is a well-used if not very interesting part of most concerts, but Machine Head did it so often it felt like it happened between every other song, and it hurt the momentum that they were setting with the pace of the songs.
Apart from that though, Machine Head’s visit to Copenhagen on this cold November evening was a very successful one. It’s not a show that’ll go down in history, but it served every purpose of going there, and the band proved that they are still a mighty force to be reckoned with.

Setlist:

Imperium
Beautiful Mourning
Now We Die
Bite The Bullet
Locust
The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears
Ten Ton Hammer
In Comes The Flood
Darkness Within
Bulldozer
Killers & Kings
Davidian
Aesthetics Of Hate
Game Over
Old
Halo