Tonight I had the choice of several events. Amongst these were a concert put on by many of the pupils I work with, and Foo Fighters at a stupidly big stadium. Or there was Machine Head. Really, no contest. Much as I’d like to see the Foos for the second time in 30 years, I can’t stand stadium gigs and I’ve only missed one Machine Head tour since they opened for Slayer in 1994.
So SWG3 it was, a venue I’m always happy to head to. A big, rectangular box where the sound is always good because of the simple shape. The staff are lovely too, and I want to shout out to them before I even get into the bands. The bar staff were lovely and efficient, and the guys at the front who handled the crowd… superb. The perfect attitude and at at least one point one of them was towering over the front rows, shaking his fist and urging the punters on! Definitely a fan who’d landed a plum job for the evening.
When the gig was first announced, I did query and at that point we were expecting an “Evening With Machine Head” performance. I was little surprised, therefore, when I saw another band’s merch for sale. A quick look online and it seemed that for the second time in two nights (Cavalera did it at King Tut’s), a big band had opted to give some local upstarts a chance to open for them. So welcome The Colony, a band we last featured on the site in 2018!
They play fairly mainstream (very) heavy metal with no real frills, a melodic edge, and it just works. No pretention, no egos, just banging tunes and a great stage presence. I don’t know what venues and crowds they’ve played to in the past, but they seemed utterly at home at the SWG3. I’m sure they had a hardcore of friends and family in the audience (happy belated birthday, Geraldo, the lead singer’s dad!) which may have helped ease their nerves, but their half hour set went by far too quickly.
A look at their Facebook tells me that they’re no slouches and are quite the gigging band with a few shows each month. Definitely ones to watch.
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Onto the headliners. Not for the first time, Machine Head have made up for those not able to travel to a more distant date (this time Download Festival) with a provincial show, and it was obviously hugely appreciated as the sold-out audience proved. Last time round it was the lack of an arena show with Amon Amarth that gifted us five “Electric Happy Hour” dates around Scotland. This time we make do with just the one, but I’ll take it!
Full disclosure, Machine Head are one of my favourite bands. I know may people see them as a more metal version of Nickelback and I’ve never got my head around the unwarranted hatred (of Nickelback either, frankly), but to my mind that’s their loss as they are one of the few bands, in my opinion, without a single blip in the quality of their album releases. Not one.
This raised my only issue of the evening. At 50 years old I’m feeling the aches and I’m not as fit as I was. As such, I kept waiting for a “not so good” song so I could sit out of the pit for a few minutes. Damn you, Machine Head, for filling your entire set with songs that I bloody love so I couldn’t rest!
The closest we got to a pause was the awesome “Darkness Within”, and I ended up going lightheaded singing my head off instead. But it didn’t matter. I was riding an absolute adrenaline high for the whole show and could have run rampant for another hour if there hadn’t been a curfew. From old (literally… “Old”) to new, the band scoured their catalogue to belt us with familiar favourites but there were always going to be songs missing. I’ve only ever heard “Who We Are” on the Locust tour, and that one needs dusting off for the next time they hit the UK. I also love “Bastards” which hasn’t been played live since the Catharsis tour in 2018 (what a show that was, too). Oh, and no “I Am Hell”, but it is a bit of a lengthy song.
I bumped (literally) into one guy between songs who saw them at Download the previous day, headlining the Opus stage. In his words: “They were amazing yesterday, but this is a much better set.” Well, we got seven more songs so that’s definitely a major plus point. I’d still have loved to have made it to Download, but I’ll take what I can get and tonight’s show was as superb as I’d expected it to be. Loud, unrelenting heavy metal with a pretty light show and great attitude from bands, staff and fans alike. Oh, and credit to the sound techs. As good a sonic experience as I’ve had at a gig. Crystal clear and head melting.
Tuesday morning felt like the recovery from leg, shoulders, arms, core and neck day… and was worth every twinge and bruise. I’ll be even older the next time and I’ll give as much of a fuck. I’ll be front and centre yet again and pretending to regret it the next day.
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Photos by Gary Cooper
