MEN IN SPACESUITS? Our most recent email came in from longtime fan Terry Lum. Thanks for the write up! Terry is indeed a man in the know. “I was going to write to each of the crew at RR separately (& I still might), but since I saw this page I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few tales about the tour: 1st up a massive THANK YOU to the RR crew, the MH Tour Manager, and of course the mighty MH, Ill Nino, Thumb, and Sugarcoma. Yet again I ventured to each of the UK shows & managed to get After Show passes (for myself & friends) to the VIP bar at Brixton. After mingling with band members, crew, and mad fans we all started to get kicked out at around 1:30 in the morning. But on our way to the exit I managed to collar Robb. Greeted in typical Flynn fashion “I wondered where that crazy Mother Fu#ker was!” (I guess he was pleased to see me again) Robb invited me and my missus back to the dressing room where I managed to set it up so that I could have AAA passes for each of the remaining gigs. Cheers Robb and Chris! As for someone reporting Human League being played after the Newport gig, that’s not the worst of it! You should check out some of the other CDs that Dave (McClain) owns. There’s some weird stuff done by guys, who (according to Dave) dress up in space suits and do strange covers of songs, leaving you going “Oh, I know that one what the hell is it?”. Also with regards to the Newport show, I just want to say a big “F#@k You” to the security guy that started to lay into a member of Ill Nino’s crew who was merely taking a load of video footage of the show for himself and the band members. That was totally uncalled for! But fortunately that did not stop what was to be an amazing gig, where I watched the show from the stage and went stage diving during the last song of the night, Supercharger. Boy that was fun. Sorry to all the people I landed on!!! By the way, did anyone see James (Sugarcoma drummer) stage dive into the barrier! Man that had to hurt! Probably the best gig overall goes to Brixton, where there is a great atmosphere in an unusual open top (but indoor) venue. Let’s hope the live recording comes out as well as the actual show when it is released. The best crowd response goes to Glasgow, where they know how to make a band feel welcome! But for me personally (and probably Sugarcoma as well, where Claire joined in playing “The Number of The Beast”) the great festive atmosphere at the Newport show where it was the final gig of the tour for the support bands was the most memorable. It has to be said that there were some long goodbye’s being said that night before Chris managed to drag MH off to the tour bus for a recording session with Radio 1 down in London the following morning. P.S. I’ve just got some photos developed today, so I might e-mail them in if anyone wants me to. Cheers, Terry Lum.” Our new friend Steve went to the London show, and found himself on TV camera! He writes, “I got to the venue at 1pm, and god the weather was freezing… while we were waiting outside, a whole group of us were interviewed for TV, we think it was the LWT area, but I don’t know if they used me in there or not, as I don’t get LWT!! So if you know if there was a program broadcast with a fatish guy with glasses and a Fear Factory jacket doing a lot of talking whereas everyone else just shuts up, then let me know!!!!” Cool story Steve, and we can tell you the TV programme was shot for Sky.. and should be on screens sometime around March. We’ll bring you more info when we get it. Check your postbox for a poster soon. It’s all good. Check out this cool tale from MH fan Tom Barker. “Hey RR!! Yeah I had a fucking ace time at the Machine Head show in Brixton aswell! Back in September I did a fan interview for Kerrang with Machine Head to launch Supercharger, so I was fucking overwhelmed when I heard I could go and meet Machine Head and Ill Nino again at Brixton. Not only did Ill Nino sign everything we put under their noses, but Robb from MH also somehow remembered my first name from the interview we did! Which was nice! The loverly Kirsten also somehow gave me and my matey, plus a load of hard working street team members some passes for the after-show party, with free alcohol! So all in all a quality night! Thank you Machine Head , Ill Nino and RRRecords!” And a poster will be winging it’s way to you too Tom. Glad you had a good night. We did too. Manchester First show of the tour, first ever Ill Nino UK show, lots of expectations to meet. The first day of a tour is always madly busy – at least for the crew and the tour manager who are running around trying to make sure that everything is in place not only for that night but the whole tour as well. All the hard work and effort paid off though, for all the bands have nothing but glowing reports of the show and fans they got to meet. The Mancunian hospitality triumphed again. London Did you know that the entire set at Brixton on the 8th was recorded live? Robert has been talking of a live album and/or a DVD release possibility and who knows where else it could show up. The band played a whole mix of catalogue – including old classics such as Ten Ton Hammer and Davidian to new songs Supercharger, and American High. Not forgetting a moving performance of Deafening Silence, dedicated to all the victims in the Sept 11 US terrorist attacks. Yes, there were plenty of lighters held aloft. With Robb introducing their encore shouting “I am Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden” the band launched into a medley of covers, including Number Of The Beast, Iron Man, Territory (Sepultura), and Sugar (System Of A Down)! But was the show good to watch? Oh yes… here’s a clip from an email we received afterwards… “hey i hope you don’t mind me emailing but i just got back from Machine Head and i had to say how fucking amazing it was, it was the best gig i have ever been to and the best live band i have ever seen, i was right at the barrier near the middle and nearly got my neck broken but it was all worth it!” Glad you had a cool time Bex, thanks for the email. Wolverhampton Mindee, RR gal on the road, tells, “it went really really well, the crowd went mad!” We guess you all had a good time then. Reports have been coming in of stage and crowd-diving Ill Nino crew during the Machine Head set, so we guess they were having a good time as well! Did you know some foolish guy threw a full pint glass at Robb during the set? And managed to hit him with it? What a waste of a good beer. Instead of being pissed off and walking off, Robb shrugged it off saying “I’m the dirtiest dog in here, covered in sweat and shit, and I haven’t showered in 5 days… I can pour my own beer over my head…” And so he did and another good beer got wasted. Just to top things off, when he threw a bottle back out into the crowd, some guy managed to catch it, without spilling it… nice one – we all know free beer is a good thing. Don’t think the pint-launching guy managed to stay in for the rest of the set after though, we hear he had a few beefy security guards keeping him company out back… Glasgow Aside from the band’s mirth at finding it impossible to understand much of the Scottish accents, we hear a massively rockin’ night out was had by all. Robb reports this was the best crowd the whole tour and that everyone just went crazy! So you Scots like Machine Head eh? Nottingham Ah, what shall we say about the “Nottinghamians”… these guys like to drink with Machine Head too. Did you know the band have been changing the covers medley slightly each night depending on whatever the hell they felt like playing at the time? Tonight was “British Metal Night”, and some time honoured old classics were belted out in fine form. If you were there, did you recognise them all? It all sounded great and the band said afterwards just what a fun time they have been having on this tour. Some of the most fun ever in fact. Post show, all the bands chilled out backstage a while, and then headed into The Rig, the downstairs bar part of Rock City, to join the remaining gig goers for a few Machine Head Brown Eyes at the bar! Oh yes, many a beverage was sunk this evening. And there everyone hung out and partied, til the tour managers chased the bands onto the buses and took them off into the dark night for the next venue. Newport Never mind the show, we heard the band made the most of the venue being a leisure centre, and spent all their spare time goofing off in the swimming pool, the jacuzzi, and bombing down the water slide! Joined by Ill Nino, our waterbabies were having such fun, they were still in there when the doors opened, and some rather surprised fans were greeted by some semi-naked, dripping wet band members hightailing it back to the dressing rooms double quick! The show, of course, was another tremendous effort, and even saw members of Ill Nino and crew crowd-diving from the stage through the set. As for the medley of covers, Sepultura’s ‘Roots’ were heard tonight, amongst others. We wouldn’t be lying if we told you we heard a trio from Machine Head and Ill Nino doing some backstage karaoke to a certain Human League song either. It’s true! That’s it. The UK tour is over. We’ll have photos up from the shows soon so keep checking back to see if you are in any of them! No more UK dates are confirmed at present although the band are hopeful of returning for festivals over the summer. In the meanwhile, content yourselves with a brand new Machine Head single ‘Crashing Around You’, complete with live tracks, to recapture the magic of the last few days in the comfort of your own bedroom.