Machine Head sticksman returns from abroad…. “What’s up?! Well, after a week of sleeping I’m ready to write a diary, so here goes. First show, a headline show in Brussels. The day starts off great, I usually get up early and head to the show with the crew, I don’t know why, I just like seeing the whole thing come together and I get to hang out with my buddy Turtle! The crew start loading the gear into the venue and guess what? Our genius bus driver forgot to get my drums and some guitar cabs before he left London!!!! After the driver and Bus Co. got a verbal reaming from our Tour Manager we had to find a drumset in Brussels!! So the kit arrives and Turtle and I scramble to make it work. A true Spinal Tap moment!!! Next we played the Rock Hard Festival in Germany, We got our drums back for this one so it’s a good day, We headline and tear it up, thank you, good night! Next show is in Belfast, Ireland. We haven’t played there in a long time. We have a day off and learn that Britney Spears is playing down the street so we do? We do what any real Heavy Metal Band would do… Try to go! It didn’t happen, our booking agent over there didn’t get back to us in time so we sat down in the bar watching all the mom’s and daughters come in looking for Britney, Turtle actually got mistaken for her a few times and signed some autographs! Next day we show up at the venue and I walk in with the crew, a perfect place for a Machine Head show, it looks like it holds about 1,200 people and it already stinks inside!!! The show ruled!!! I think it was the hottest show we’ve ever played and the crowd was SICK!! Towards the end of the set someone decided that the sound board needed a beer, not good, no more P.A.!! We still had 4 songs to play so we turned our monitors toward the crowd and finished the show! God we’re awesome!! Next was Download Scotland, didn’t get to see much of the day, after we were done we had to load up a bunch of our stuff and fly to the next show in Germany cause we wouldn’t have made it in the bus. We drive to the airport in Glasgow, the crew loads up 45 pieces of equipment,we fly to London, crew loads gear into vans, stay at hotel for 3 hours, drive back to airport, crew loads gear on plane, fly to Frankfurt, Germany, crew loads gear into vans, drive for 2 1/2 hours to show… No sleep!!! We get to the Rock Am Ring festival and it’s POURING down rain, I gotta hand to our crew, after no sleep they were right up onstage getting everything ready while it’s freezing and raining The show was killer, Soil played while it was just pouring down rain sideways onto the stage, they were killer. Motorhead, Evanescence and Korn played too, I had never seen Evanescence before, Amy has got an amazing voice! Korn, what can you say, they’re an unbelievable live band, they had 50,000 people in the palm of their hands. Next day was Rock Am Park, pretty much the same lineup so it was cool talking to all the bands a little more. Next stop, Donington. This show for me was the one I was dreaming about playing, I would always hear about Iron Maiden and most of my favorite Metal bands playing the Castle Donington festival and now we we’re playing it!!!! The show is like a High School Reunion, everyone is there. First person I see when I got off the bus is Ahrue, we take a shuttle to the dressing room area and go our seperate ways, they’re onstage in about 45 minutes. I go up to the stage and start seeing everybody, talking with the Slipknot crew and watch Ill Nino rock for a little while, we get word that there’s been some problems with a band or two and we go on later now and Damage Plan is getting moved to the Main Stage and are going on right before us! I go up and say hi the DP guys talk to Vinnie and Dime for a minute, went over and said what’s up to the Slayer boys, their crew wasn’t there yet so they weren’t in the best of moods, but I was cause we were getting ready to play one of the coolest festivals EVER!!! The cool thing about playing a show like this is that for me the audience turns into the band and I’m the audience, a great experience and we were AMAZING if I do say so myself! After the show I was hanging out in the dressing room area and a guy who works for Metallica comes up and asks me if I knew any of their stuff… DUH!! At first I thought they were putting together a cover band for one the stages, then I heard that Lars was gonna be a no show!! I went straight to their dressing room and waited outside for my shot! They were already jamming with someone (I think Joey) so I waited and waited… never happened, Joey was doing pretty good in there and we had to leave before they went on but I heard he did killer, good for him, that’s any drummers dream come true! Next night was the Metal Hammer Awards, another High School Reunion! Hung out with everybody, Soil, God Forbid, Hatebreed, Damage Plan, In Flames, Mark from Chimaira, even hung out with Kerry King for a while and talked about music. A great night, drank about 43 Vodka and O.J.’s and even did a shot of Absinthe with Corey (God Forbid) and Mistress Julia. Went back to hotel and passed out for about 3 hours then off to the airport where after being on the plane for 3 hours they cancelled our flight!! mfg Mr. Demmel wasn’t having any of that, he went up and got us on the next flight out (they were trying to put us back in a hotel for the night) and we made it home. Life Fucking Rules!!!!!! Thank you, Good night!”