Matt Holland (Man Must Die) Blogs From The Machinehead Tour

Plymouth: We begin our journey and drive overnight from Edinburgh to the first show in Plymouth. We arrive early afternoon and get help loading in from the local crew. The Pavilions is a huge complex attached to a large leisure and shopping centre. The main hall is huge and the stage, P.A and machine head’s backline, which has travelled with the tour through Europe, is already set up.

We set up our gear on the main floor and try to acclimate ourselves to the size of the place. We don’t have a dressing room or catering for the night so there’s a feeling of being the new kids at school, so we sit and wait to be told what to do. We watch Machine Head soundcheck and get to see what the P.A can do, it’s a loud piece of kit and they sound great.

The stage is split and Bleeding Through and Hatebreed’s backdrops are hung up halfway forward. We set up back line and have a linecheck and quick soundcheck. The touring crew are super professional and do a great job whilst treating us well.

We have our own backline with us and I’m using my Pearl Masters BRX with 10”, 12” racks, 14” and 16” floors and 2x 22×18” kicks with my Masters Maple 14”x6.5 snare. I recently bought Nick Barker’s Black Masterworks kit with all black Paiste cymbals from his Dimmu Borgir days . As this is the biggest thing we have ever done I decided to bring along a set of the Paistes to make a good visual impression. I’m using 13” and 14”Signature heavy hi-hats,  15” 2002 crash, 17” Signature power crash, 18” 2002 crash,  18” and 20” 2002 Novo Chinas and a 22” Signature Power Ride. All in Black with white logos, very tasty!

There’s little time from setting up to the doors opening and we are due to play 15 minutes after.  Shortly before we go on we meet Robb Flynn and have a brief chat where he tells us that the band are really excited to have us along. This really gets our mood up and we psyche ourselves to play.

We don’t expect to play to much of a crowd being so early so it’s a huge shock when we walk on to a great cheer from nearly 1000 people! As soon as our intro kicks in the crowd are into it. Our set is only 20 minutes so we get time for 4 songs; This Day Is Black,  It Comes In Threes, No Tolerance For Imperfection and Kill It, Skin it, Wear it.  Robb from Machine Head watches the whole thing from the monitor desk and seems to really dig it. We play really well considering we’re all pretty nervous and by the end of the set when Joe calls to see everyone’s hands in the air all I can see is a sea of hands right back to the sound desk. There must be over 2000 people in when we finish up who give us the biggest cheer we’ve ever had…

We get loaded off super quick and packed straight up and loaded our van, again with the help of the local crew. It’s pretty frantic so it takes a while for us all to get together and have a beer and chat about the set. We’re all pretty shellshocked  simply from the sheer scale of the stage, crowd and great reaction.

We miss most of Bleeding Through’s set as we’re loading out though you can hear they get a great reception. I head out front to watch some of Hatebreed’s set and they really have the crowd going.

All the band watch Machine Head’s set from the upper balcony and from the start the whole place kicks off. It’s possibly the loudest show I’ve ever been to, even at the back off the hall the bass was shaking my entire body. Dave Mclain’s Yamaha kit sounded monstrous and the oak 16” and 18” floor toms were like bombs going off.  They put on an amazing show and the crowd react accordingly.

After the set we arrange to stay over at the house of the local crew, he is working load out but suggests we head to a local bar for an aftershow party. We go along to find we are the only band from the show but still get a free bottle of Jack Daniels which tops of a long but successful day nicely….

Newport: With slightly sore heads we get a big breakfast and head north to Wales and Newport. The venue is in another leisure centre complete with public swimming pool and gym. It’s a bit weird seeing the merch getting put up in the foyer next to school kids lining up for a swim..!

The stage is set up again and we load in and set up off stage. It’s a similar setup to Plymouth but quite a bit smaller. The manager complains of low ticket sales, Us and the guys from Bleeding Through have a laugh when we hear 1500 denotes a low turnout!

Today a few things have been said and MH’s manager has arranged a dressing room and catering which helps us out greatly.

As I’m setting up, Dave from Machine Head introduced himself and we get a good chat. We talk mainly about the tour so far and about his new Yamaha kit. He seems really happy with it and I make a mental note to ask for a go before the tour finishes! He also has a Yamaha electric kit which gets set up in their dressing room to warm up on, I feel a bit jealous with my little practice pad…

Robb also stops by for more of a chat and talks about our album and how much he likes it and goes into guitar tones with Alan and Davy at which point I lose interest…

We play  to less people than the previous night but there’s still a good few hundred in.  Again we play really well and we feel a lot less daunted. The crowd are really good again and we get good cheers and pits.

After we play, we hear that Bozz, the tour manager has asked that we play the two Irish dates in Dublin and Belfast. Even paying our ferry ticket for us. Needless to say, we’re ecstatic.

I don’t see any other band’s set tonight and stay and relax in our dressing room after a long shower.

We find accommodation form some helpful people after hanging a sign at our merch station and head into the welsh hills for the night, looking forward to the big one in Brixton tomorrow…

London: So the biggest show of the tour is only 3 dates in… With much anticipation we roll into South London and arrive at the legendary Brixton Academy.
We park right outside the loadin area and have a quick, easy get in with the help of local crew.

The holding area is directly inside and only metres from the back of the stage so we get set up next to Hatebreed and Bleeding Through’s gear and go find our dressing room. We get a small but comfortable dressing room which has a window overlooking the side entrance to the venue. I’m particularly impressed by the fact we have a mirror with spotlights surrounding it and I have a Marilyn Monroe moment getting ready.

Brixton is a maze of corridors backstage so we use the few hours before doors to explore and take in the history of the place. Everywhere are photos of artists who have played there before over the years. We tour the building and check out the main arena as MH are soundchecking where they  impress us with some Scottish insults they’ve picked up. Most of which cannot be repeated here…

With it being London, the majority of press and promotion is taking place today. All the singers of the bands are doing a interview for Scuzz TV and at Robb’s request  Joe is included after not initially being down to do it. Joe doesn’t say much,  it’s all a bit daunting for him,  first TV interview and surrounded by vocalists he’s respected for years. He does a good job though and Robb is really supportive. Just hope people can understand what he’s saying…

I’ve been talking with Yamaha about an endorsement deal and the A&R rep is here to see Dave McClain.  She has some spare time so we sit in catering with a cup of tea and have a chat.  I tell her the story of getting this tour and the bands plans for the rest of the year and we discuss what deal I will get. Watch this space…

With an hour before doors open theres a queue round the building making a lot of noise, even the rain isn’t putting them off before. We have the dressing room window open and drop a couple of beers down to the people below. We’re right next door to MH and they have their practice setup ready and are jamming some songs. It must be great to be able to have a full rehearsal before playing live.

Show time and we go on to a fairly decent crowd which grows constantly as we play.  The set is tight and although theres some nerves because of the scale of the show we all enjoy it and go down well. By the time we play ‘Kill It…’ with the extended intro we wrote for this tour, the place is basically full.

There’s a feeling of relief knowing we played the show we’d all been looking forward to so well and the beer flows in the dressing room. A few friends have shown up and come back to our room and have a bit of a party,.

We watch a bit of the other bands sets and everyone is on fire tonight.  The gravity of the show making everyone play out of their skin.

There’s an aftershow party in the vip bar tonight so we wait for that. There’s so much press in that the MH guys are so busy after their set and they take a long time to get ready. They basically come through for a meet and greet with a few autograph hunters although Robb and Phil spend some time chatting with us. There’s a 2 day gap on the tour after London so Robb is up for drinking so he heads off with his wife to party. Hatebreed are playing in Barcelona the following day and have already left to start their journey. We’ve arranged accommodation at a friends house just outside London so say our goodbyes and head off in search of a bed.

We have the run of my friend Alex’s house while he’s away on honeymoon. Very trusting to let  6 guys use your house for a weekend… He has a practice studio in his garden so the plan is to spend the down time rehearsing for the next dates. I reality the time is spent sleeping, watching DVDs and playing darts in the local pub…

Birmingham: We make the relatively short trip from Aldershot to Birmingham to the O2.  Its strange but good to get back to the same venue we kicked off the last tour with Decapitated only 3 weeks earlier, only this time we’re in the biggest not the smallest hall.

We’re back sharing a room with Bleeding Through again and it’s good to hang with them again.  We do the usual routine of setting up front of house and waiting. Today we get a quick line check after we setup which is a great bonus. We run through ‘This Day Is Black’ and get a good feel of the onstage sound. We play not long after and the set goes well. There are even a few guys from the last tour here down the front shouting the words when we play ‘Kill IT…’ and we spot a few MMD shirts in the crowd.

We meet up with Scott Atkins who recorded our last album with who managed to catch the last 2 songs of the set. He’s pretty complimentary on our playing which anyone who has recorded with him will know is not  a big part of his vocabulary. We’re going to get a sign to put above his studio door saying ‘ Yeah, another couple of takes, you can get it tighter…’.

We also meet the guys from Napalm Death who we have a good chat with and I talk with Nick Barker who I haven’t seen since I bought his Pearl Masterworks Dimmu Borgir kit. It’s like he was checking up on a child he hadn’t seen for a while. I assured him that she’s in good hands.

We don’t see much of the MH guys after the show and we have the floor of someones room to sleep on so we head off as soon as our merch is counted to get a decent sleep.

Leeds: After an unremarkable night in suburban Birmingham we rise early and head northeast to Leeds. The weather is even colder than it has been and there’s snow falling when we hit the motorway. We arrive at the Academy in Leeds in beautiful sunny weather but it’s barely above freezing.

We do the loadin quickly, more to warm up than anything and head to catering to get a warm drink. Theres nothing else to do so we set up our gear and decamp to the dressing room which is basically a broom cupboard already containing various members of Bleeding Through. The guys head into leeds to kill some time so I spend most of the afternoon chatting with Derek from BT discussing Drums, jobs and his impending addition to his family. He won’t be part of the tour when it goes to Japan and Australia as his wife will be due his second child. They have a stand in who they’ve never met before. I wished I’d known them earlier, I would have loved to have helped out.

We play an enjoyable, tight set and get a good reception tonight. The stage is slightly smaller so we feel more confined but this is what we’re used to playing like, we thrive off each others energy. There’s a few faces in from our Rio’s show from the last tour and when we speak to them afterwards, the general thought is that we’re playing even better every time we come back.

We watch the rest of the show from the balcony which is closed to the public so have a great view. The pit is particularly violent tonight for all the bands and we spend as much time watching people destroy each other as much as the bands.

Our accommodation for the night falls through right as we’re ready to leave which leaves us with the prospect of paying for hotel rooms. Purely by chance I speak to some people outside the venue and one of their friends worked at Rio’s at the Decapitated gig. He offers us his room to sleep in proving the legend; be nice to everyone you meet, you never know when you’ll need a favour.

Glasgow: Homeward bound. We leave early to get up the road in time for load in. Everyone’s psyched to be going back to play to our home crowd. Robb and the MH guys all love Glasgow as one of their favourite crowds. We get up early which allows guitarist Alan time to go and finalise the MOT on our van. We’ve had to hire a splitter for the first half of the tour when ours failed it’s test the day before we left for Plymouth. Alan arrives with our old van and Simon our tour manager drops off the hire one and all stress is dissolved.

The first impression of the Academy is that it’s Freezing. The whole building, and it’s huge, is like a fridge. We get a tiny dressing room up 4 flights of back stairs which has no hot water in the taps. The small catering room in the basement is the only place that you can be without a jacket so I stay there as long as I can drinking tea.  All the other guys had been dropped at their respective houses and got showered and fed so I spent the afternoon fixing a broken hi hat clutch.

Because of ridiculous local management we can’t even get backstage passes for our wives and girlfriends so we don’t even get to see them til after doors open.

The vibe is pretty flat when we play. Maybe because it’s so damn cold,  or because there’s security actually in the crowd stopping the kids pitting.  We play pretty well and there’s a ton of our friends and fans  in the crowd really making an effort but I just come off stage not feeling like I just played to 2000 people.

There’s a day off in the tour after tonight and some of the guys have arranged to take the MH guys out for a drink in town afterwards to celebrate MMD guitarist Alan’s birthday . Unfortunately my day off will be spent working a 14 hour shift so I drive back home to Edinburgh and get a few hours sleep, leaving the guys to party.

Newcastle: So after a not so restful day off we head down to Newcastle. We’re back in our trusty old Yellow and Green machine and in good spirits despite a couple of good hangovers. Things have been running far too smoothly for a MMD tour so true to form, the van fails to start after a fuel stop half way to Newcastle. It seems the starter motor has gone so we have to bump start it. This will be come a regular part of daily life for us in the coming days…

Because of our technical problem we are running a little late to get to the venue. This really means less hanging around for us so we quickly load in and set up out front. We get our meal and watch MH soundcheck. Bozz the tour manager and MH sound man is really cranking the PA, it’s possibly the loudest I’ve heard it.  I’d polished my cymbals when I set up and 2 mins into a song, there’s plaster dust covering them. This is from the ceiling…  The heads on my toms are flexing by at least an inch and Matt from Hatebreed’s kit which is set up next to mine actually ‘walks’ 3 feet across the floor! This is crazy volume. Word goes round that it hit 140 db.

Backstage is pretty small from the venue being a converted cinema and all dressing rooms are close together. We share with the Bleeding Through guys again. I really enjoy the set tonight and play pretty well to a great crowd. The others seem to have monitor problems and this throws them a bit and they can’t get into it.

After our set I meet my dad at the bar who has come to check us out tonight and have a few beers and watch the rest of the show. At the end of the night while we wait for merch counting we hang out backstage where my dad befriends Hatebreed and ends up chatting to them about Philosophy or something, much to the amusement of the MMD guys…

As we get ready to leave we get a look inside MH’s tour bus with Adam from the band. It’s like a travelling hotel, immaculate inside, all blonde wood panelling and leather. There’s an image of a fire on the LCD screens and even the noise of a fire crackling playing through the speakers…! Strangely they decline our offer of a look inside our Puke Yellow, non-starting van….

We stay at my dad’s flat in Sunderland, just south of Newcastle which gives us a slight start on our journey to Manchester the next day.

Manchester: We stop for a big breakfast before leaving rainy Sunderland and head south west to Manchester. The rain doesn’t ease for the whole journey and is falling steadily when we arrive. There’s a few fans waiting by the back door, some had been at the Newcastle show and speak to us about how much they enjoyed our set which is really encouraging.  We load in side stage and get led through the huge backstage area through a maze of corridors to a big dressing room. The Apollo is massive, the second biggest on the tour after Brixton for capacity.

Dave from MH is doing a meet and greet at a local music shop arranged by Yamaha, the reps and A&R guys are there and invite me along but it’s right at the time we’re due to set up and line check.

Despite the bad weather, spirits are high today and with it being the last date on UK mainland everyone wants to make it a good one. We spend most of the afternoon in the dressing room together having a laugh. We get slightly more time after linecheck than usual so get chance for a small rehearsal and run through a couple of songs which helps get us psyched.

We play a good tight set and everyone enjoys it along with the crowd. There’s a good number in by the end of our set. Luckily the rain has stopped by the time we break down and pack up as we have to do it outside the back door of the venue. After loading the van, we get catering and watch the show. I meet up with Felicity and Tony from Yamaha, who disappointingly didn’t make it back in time to see our set, and head to the uppermost balcony to watch MH with them. We watch the first half then head to side stage to watch the rest.. All the bands are there for the end of the set as Robb has organised a photo shoot for everyone to be taken onstage. We all pile on after ‘Davidian’ and pose for our shot with the crowd behind us. It turns out to be a great picture and Fiaz the tour photographer presents us all with our own printed copy later which everyone signs.

With the tour moving to Ireland in two days the breakdown is quicker tonight and the  backline trucks are already being loaded as we get out. It’s pretty comical trying to push start our van between three huge trucks. We’ve arranged accommodation tonight with a guy who’s DJ ing at an after show party so we head to the club for that. We meet up with the Yamaha guys again and the  party is actually pretty lame so we head into the next room of the club and get drunk, dance to pop music and meet some amazing people.

The atmosphere of the day and the show made it pretty special today, definitely my day of the tour. We head back to our guy’s flat and I fall asleep with a smile on my face…

Newcastle (Revisited): There’s a gap day in the tour before the Irish dates but we already arranged to play a Cancer charity all day Death Metal show in Newcastle so it means another early start with a slightly sore head and a drive back north.

The show has already started by the time we arrive so we get our gear into the venue and get some food. We play at around 8.30,  third from the top of the bill. The place is pretty compact and the stage cramped but maybe because there’s a lot less pressure than the Bigger shows we’ve done we play an amazing set. It’s good to do a few more songs than we have been playing. Overall it’s a good show and most importantly , Paul, the organiser made a good amount of money for Cancer Research.

Dublin: So  we leave the Newcastle show and need to make the drive overnight to Stranraer to catch the 5.30am ferry to Belfast. We’re without our tour manager, Simon, who  had another tour to work on. Things are a lot quieter without him, he was probably the funniest guy on the tour, definitely the most flatulent… Not to mention his hard work driving, setting up our merch, doing our lights and generally helping as much as possible.

The road is pretty bad so we don’t get a lot of sleep on the journey and we only just make it in time to catch our ferry. We set sail at dawn and I get a couple of hours sleep on a bench. When we arrive in Belfast, we head to pick up a friend who will be helping out for the two shows. We stop at his house and get another couple of hours sleep before making the trip down to Dublin.

The venue in Dublin is a real old style Theatre. There’s a really steep three tier balcony and the stage actually slopes forward which is quite strange to play on. It’s good to see the crew again and we’re back sharing with Bleeding Through.  The cold weather and lack of sleep feel like they’re taking their toll and I can feel the start of a cold.

We have some fans in Dublin and the crowd really get going even as we walk on. We get a great reception, the best of the tour, and there’s a chant of  ‘Man Must Die!’ when we finish. I personally play absolutely terribly which is a shame as the crowd is so good. My feet just aren’t working properly for the whole set. It puts me on a downer for the rest of the night. Nothing noteworthy happens for the rest of the show.

We decide to head back up to Belfast that night to stay with our friend’s girlfriend. We hit the motorway with the intention of finding a service station to refuel. Little do we know that for reasons unknown there are no services on Irish motorways… So we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere , in the middle of the night, running out of fuel. Online checks bring no results for fuel stations so we turn off to the nearest village which turns out to be deserted. We park up ready to sleep there for the night in the van. Luckily we spot an old guy walking his dog and ask for help. He clearly thinks he’s going to get dragged onto the van and murdered but gives us directions to the next village which has a 24hour fuel station. So, back on the road and fully fuelled, we arrive late in Belfast and get some much needed sleep. It’s not been the best of days…

Belfast: Last day of the tour and I’m determined not to let my cold spoil the show and exorcise the bad show demons from Dublin. It’s a really great sunny day and we head out for breakfast and find a guy who has a spare part for Alan’s guitar which broke lastnight.  The venue is a huge hall which seems to be some kind of church building with a massive pipe organ behind the stage and religious murals on the walls. It’s obviously been recently renovated as the dressing room area is immaculate. Everyone is chilled today and looking forward to going home, the other bands have been on the road for nearly 2 months now.

Time runs over slightly and we have to rush to setup  and check.  We’re on shortly after and play a blinder, the crowd are great and Robb and the MH guys watch from side stage. We get Fiaz the Photographer up to sing the chorus to ‘Kill It…’ which he loves.

We’re all really amped to have a good show for the last one and end the tour on a high. We watch the rest of the show and Joe and Alan get up at the end of MH’s set and sing  the end of ‘Davidian’ with Robb doing his best impersonation of Joe shouting ‘ Git In the fuckin’ circle pit’ in a Glasweigian accent!

We all hang in MH’s dressing room and have drinks after the show with Robb pouring ‘Goldies’, a pint of half and half Grey Goose vodka and Coke. After a few of them things got a bit cloudy…

We all said our farewells and got a lot of photos together and left them for the last time.

We stay at the same flat and head to the port to get the ferry home in the morning. We get texts from Robb saying how happy he was that we did the tour and we’ll have to do it again. We get home tired but satisfied. It was the biggest experience any of us have had and it’s really opened our eyes to how bigger tours work. We played to around 15,000 people over the tour so hopefully there’s at least a few of them now Man Must Die Converts….

 

That’s all for now… Matt Holland