Metal fans gathered Monday night—the night after the Super Bowl—for a blinding night at the Fillmore Silver Spring, the latest stop on metal icon Machine Head’s massive Slaughter the Martour North American tour. Machine Head has Fear Factory, Orbit Culture, and Gates to Hell along for the ride.
The night kicked off early as Gates To Hell took the stage at 6:30PM to a still-assembling crowd. Gates to Hell (vocalist Ryan Storey, bassist Dustin Cantrell, guitarists Seth Lewis, Stephen Price, and Eli Hanson, and drummer Jared Barron) is a metalcore outfit from Louisville, Kentucky; in September 2022, they released their debut self-titled album. The band has said that their body of work is largely inspired by horror-related themes; live Monday night, it prepped the stoked fans for a long night of metal chaos with a 30-minute set.
After seeing Orbit Culture three times in 2023 when they supported Avatar, I was eager to see the Swedish band again. At 7:20PM, Orbit Culture (vocalist/guitarist Niklas Karlsson, guitarist Richard Hansson, bassist Fredrik Lennartsson, and drummer Christopher Wallerstedt), took the stage and proceeded to tear the place down. Watching them perform, the word that kept coming to mind was “ferocious.”
Writing about the band last September, when I covered their date in Nashville with Avatar, I said that Orbit Culture seemed to have gotten better over the course of 2023, if it were possible. I daresay the same thing has happened since last fall—their sound and stage presence seems to have improve even more. The terrorizing sound of the band’s live set was punctuated by the egging on of the audience, which was more than happy to comply with Karlsson’s instructions to form circle pits.
The aural brutality got the crowd surfers falling into the arms of the Fillmore’s security staff while everyone else chanted “HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!” I looked at my watch—it was only 7:40PM. On a Monday. It was absolute chaos and Orbit Culture owned the room like headliners. Later in the night, I crept downstairs to buy a t-shirt from OC’s merch stand, something I should have done a long time ago. Karlsson and bassist Lennartsson were happily chatting with fans and posing for photos.
Fear Factory came to the stage as a recorded voice boomed through the venue, welcoming the crowd to the “new era” of Fear Factory and with music from the soundtrack to The Terminator. For the uninitiated, Fear Factory formed in Los Angeles back in 1989 and, since then, has gone through several lineup changes. Guitarist Dino Cazares is the sole remaining original member. The “new era” refers to the addition of Italian vocalist Milo Silvestro; this is the DC area’s first opportunity to see him in action as he only joined the band in 2023. He nailed the band’s industrial metal.
The set was composed of material from across the band’s history. From “Demanufacture” and “Replica” from 1995’s Demanufacture, to “Disruptor” and “Fuel Injected Suicide Machine” from 2021’s Aggression Continuum, it was a well-balanced, nine-song set. The crowd loved it and complied with the band’s desire for chaos.
Finally, at 9:25PM, Machine Head took the stage, which was left wide open, spread with rugs, and backed by large lighting equipment. The crowd chanted “MACHINE FUCKING HEAD! MACHINE FUCKING HEAD!” mirroring the large graphic on the screen in the back of the stage. Machine Head formed in 1991 by vocalist/rhythm guitarist Robb Flynn, the only original member of the band. Machine Head’s aggressive style made it a pioneer in American heavy metal, and the band’s current lineup, along with Flynn, is bassist Jared MacEachern, lead guitarist Wacław Kiełtyka, and drummer Matt Alston.
Machine Head’s set was the ultimate bedlam that the rest of the night foreshadowed. The set pulled material from across the band’s discography, reaching back to 1994’s Burn My Eyes (“Davidian” and “Old”) to 2022’s Of Kingdom and Crown (“CHOKE ON THE ASHES OF YOUR HATE, “NO GODS, NO MASTERS,” and “SLAUGHTER THE MARTYR”). “Davidian” provided the crowd with an extra special treat, when Amon Amarth’s Johan Soderberg joined the band onstage. It was, top to bottom, an insane night of blazing hot metal.
Finally, a quick shout out to the Fillmore’s security staff, who have a big job every night but did an especially good job keeping folks safe Monday night. It was an enthusiastic, happy, and rowdy crowd—even the bands noted it. One fan even wound up with an arm in a sling after hurting his wrist, presumably in the circle pit that started early and kept going through the night. As usual, the staff skillfully caught crowd surfers, kept people along the rail hydrated, and looked after us photographers well. There are a few friendly faces there I always look forward to seeing and Monday night did not disappoint. Well done, as usual.
The Slaughter the Martour North American tour stretches through the remainder of February, when it wraps up in Los Angeles on the 24th. Machine Head then goes to Australia in March before spending much of the summer touring Europe.
GATES TO HELL
ORBIT CULTURE
FEAR FACTORY
MACHINE HEAD
FEAR FACTORY SETLIST
Shock
Edgecrusher
Powershifter
Disruptor
Fuel Injected Suicide Machine
Linchpin
Slave Labor
Demanufacture
Replica
MACHINE HEAD SETLIST
Imperium
Ten Ton Hammer
CHOKE ON THE ASHES OF YOUR HATE
Aesthetics of Hate
Old
Locust
The Blood, the Sweat, the Tears
NO GODS, NO MASTERS
SLAUGHTER THE MARTYR
Bulldozer
From This Day
Davidian
Halo
