A Saturday night in downtown Los Angeles is always a good time . . . throw in Heavy Metal masters Machine Head playing a show at The Bellwether and the fact that it is the last night of their North American Slaughter the Martour and you have one hell of a party. Add in that Los Angeles natives Fear Factory, Sweden’s Orbit Culture and Louisville's Gates to Hell are opening the show making it a total banger from start to finish.

February 24, 2024 – a cool Saturday night had the “Head Cases” (Machine Head die-hard fans) lining up early at The Bellwether to be the first into the venue to get that front row rail spot. The Bellwether is a new venue in downtown Los Angeles that opened in 2023 with a 1500-person capacity, has convenient, inexpensive parking and a nice layout with a spacious balcony and outdoor patio – this venue looks to be a great new spot for national touring acts hitting SoCal.

The five week Slaughter the Martour started in San Francisco back on January 19 where Machine Head kicked off the tour with a hometown show and then crossed the US into Canada and is now ending in Machine Head’s “second hometown” of Los Angeles.

Gates to Hell opened the show at 6:30pm to an already packed house and kicked off the night with some brutal Death Metal. Los Angeles traffic prevented Hunnypot Live from witnessing this onslaught, but they certainly created a buzz in the venue after they left the stage.

Next Orbit Culture kept the brutality going but with a bit of a more melodic approach and opened their 40-minute set with “Saw” from 2018’s Redfog album and they crushed Los Angeles throughout their set. Vocalist/guitarist Niklas Karlsson was very thankful to Machine Head for taking them on this tour and to the fans for their support. Karlsson had the maniacs on the floor do a “Wall of Death” at least 2 times if not more and had the thrashers on the floor getting extremely rowdy. The night ended with “Vultures of North” and this set was the perfect segway into Fear Factory hitting the stage.

Fear Factory . . . always a huge draw in Los Angeles, such an innovative band that set the bar high for industrial metal. The machine gun riffs and drumming combined with the Death Metal growls and clean vocals put them in a league of their own. While Dino Cazares remains the sole original member, the band is at the top of their game with Milo Silvestro now on vocals as he brings a well-received spark to the bands live performance.

The night started with “Shock” then into “Edgecrusher” that had Brandan Schieppati from Bleeding Through join Silvestro on vocals. Cazares continues to have a magical right hand rifling those riffs on his seven string Ormsby guitars and also smiling endlessly while doing so. With Tony Campos out touring with Static-X, Javier Arriaga is filling in for the current live shows in place of Campos and doing a fine job doing so. And on drums – Pete Webber (also plays in Havok) . . . Webber is a small man but GEEZ he is a total animal smashing those skins – WOW!!!

The fans have quickly taken to Silvestro on vocals as this must be the 4rth or 5^th time Fear Factory has played SoCal in the last year and the hometown crowd is loving this version of Fear Factory. The night ended with the 1-2 punch of “Demanufacture” and “Replica” and the stage was now set for Machine Head to destroy Los Angeles.

At 9:30pm the lights went dark and the guitar intro to “Imperium” played as Robb Flynn strolled out to his microphone as the rest of the band (Jared MacEachern on bass, Reece Scruggs on guitar and Matt Alston on drums) took their places and all hell broke loose as the song picked up its pace and Flynn barked out “Hear Me Now” . . . instantly a huge mosh pit erupted and the crowd surfing started. The elaborate stage backed with a large video screen played images pertaining to each song as the band played. Flynn asked Los Angeles “If You Motherfuckers were ready to have a good time with Machine Head tonight” and then if “They wanted it Heavy” before launching into “Ten Ton Hammer” which electrified the crowd even more.

Machine Head and especially Robb Flynn is one of if not the most ferocious and aggressive bands to play on a live stage. This band just makes you want to bang your head and pump your fist and Flynn knows how to work the crowd into a frenzy. The band played a perfect mix of songs from the majority of their records equaling a head-crushing setlist.

MacEachern now 11 years into his tenure with the band has a very dynamic stage presence often interacting with fans in the front. Reece Scruggs has been filling in for Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka while he was unable to attend some shows in the USA but since Vogg recently announced his departure from Machine Head – it is unclear who the permanent guitar player will be – Scruggs would be a perfect fit for  Machine Head but he also plays in Havok so we are all eager to see what happens. On drums Alston holds his own as he pounds the crap out of his kit during every song – a very dynamic drummer.

It's great to hear “Bulldozer” and “From This Day” in the set and the fans went batshit crazy during these songs, “Aesthetics of Hate” was dedicated to Dimebag and the solo tradeoffs between Scruggs and Flynn during “Locust” were magical, Milo from Fear Factory came out to sing the second verse on “Davidian”, so many epic moments during this show . . . THAT is Robb Flynn, he makes EVERY minute on stage something special.

Flynn thanked all the bands out with them, and all the fans of Los Angeles and the band went into an epic version of “Halo” to end the night and the tour. Machine Head proves once again they are the kings of all things HEAVY and delivered a 90-minute masterpiece of a show.

Machine Head Set List:

Imperium | Ten Ton Hammer | CHØKE ØN THE ASHES ØF YØUR HATE | Aesthetics of Hate | Old | Locust | The Blood, the Sweat, the Tears | NØ GØDS, NØ MASTERS | SLAUGHTER THE MARTYR | Bulldozer | From This Day | Davidian | Halo