It was a crisp winter evening in Orlando when Machine Head entered the House of Blues for the first time in 13 years! Yup, that’s right. Disney banned Machine Head for a number of reasons including violent imagery, inflammatory lyrics and “undesirable fans” (it’s not easy being metal), and since the House of Blues is on the House of Mouse’s property, they were not able to play this venue for more than a decade. But that famine ended Sunday, January 26th with a, in the words of their lead singer Robb Flynn, TRIUMPHANT RETURN. And TRIUMPHANT it was. Triumphant and brutal and hardcore and balls to the wall metal that lasted a glorious 3 hours.
Machine Head hit the scene in the early ’90s and brought with them an alternative to the grunge sound of the time. Their version of hardcore thrash metal meets punk resonated, and created a passionate fan following which can be heard chanting at the top of their lungs, “MACHINE-FUCKING-HEAD!” As Robb Flynn said, “You don’t stay in the music industry for 25 years because you love the music industry. You do it because you love music”
This chant followed them to the House of Blues where they opened the first ½ of the 3-hour show with “Imperium” from their 2003 album Through the Ashes of Empires. The crowd thrashed and head-banged through the first set. Song after song, from “Now We Die” and “Beautiful” to “I am Hell” and “Aesthetics of Hate” raged out from the stage while the moshpit swirled and throbbed. After a brief pause by lead singer Robb Flynn to check the pulse of the crowd (RACING) we were lead into “Darkness Within” as the crowd sang along with every word. Closing the 1st 1⁄2 of the set was a kick-ass cover of Iron Maiden’s “Hallowed be thy Name” then the House of Blues was blanketed with confetti blasted out of cannons as they closed the set with “Halo”.
After a 10 minute break, Machine Head came back to the stage for the 2nd round, this time with band-mates from the early days, Chris Kontos on Drums and Logan Mader on Lead Guitar. They spent the next hour and ½ celebrating the 25th anniversary of the album Burn My Eyes the only way they know, HARD. The set covered songs like “Davidian”, “A Thousand Lies”, “The Rage to Overcome” and “Blood for Blood”. In the midst of the album, our bones were rocked by a hard-hitting drum solo by Chris Kontos.
The end of the 2nd set and the marathon that was this incredible Anniversary event pummeled our ears and spoke to our souls with hard-hitting, bone-rattling, memory invoking medley including “Sanitarium”, “Angry Chair”, “Seek and Destroy” “Bulls on Parade” and “South of Heaven”, and then closed with “Block”.
Machine Head still has 15+ shows across the country and Canada between now and the end of February. If you love old school, hardcore, thrash/punk/metal you’ll want to catch this show! Baltimore/DC and New York fans – you’ll have a chance this weekend! Machinehead will be stopping by The Fillmore Silver Spring Friday, January 31st. Then on Saturday, February 1st, they’ll be at Webster Hall in New York! For more information and tickets, click here.
