“Three hours of molten metal, raging pits and life-affirming sing-alongs!” Machine Head announce evening-with Europe and UK shows for spring 2026

Machine Head have announced an evening-with tour of Europe and the UK.

Oakland’s groove metal pioneers will return to the other side of the Atlantic in April and May, for a run of dates where they’re set to play three-hour-long sets every night. It will mark the first time that they’ve done an evening-with tour since 2020. See all announced dates below.

On social media, the band promise “three hours of molten metal, raging pits and life-affirming sing-alongs!” Tickets are now available for pre-sale. Get yours via the Machine Head website.

Singer/guitarist Robb Flynn comments: “No openers. No limits. Just three hours of anthems, deep cuts, ragers and epics, the songs you’ve screamed so loud we could feel it in our bones.

“I want these nights to feel like those rare shows where everything clicks and the world falls away. Where we can dig into the catalogue, take our time, talk, play, improvise, go places we haven’t gone in years… or ever.

“I want to see you jump until the floor shakes. I want to hear those first words of Halo explode like a war cry. I want to hear that massive ‘Let freedom ring’ during Davidian that rattles the walls. I want to feel the whole room move as one.

“These are the nights where the band and the fans become the same damn thing. Pre-sale tickets start today. I hope you’ll be there with us. I hope you’ll bring your voice. Because we’re going to need it.”

Evening-with tours were a regular practice for Machine Head in the 2010s, especially after they stopped playing festivals in 2014. Flynn later explained that the band stepped away from the circuit due to burn-out and not feeling connected with the mainstream heavy metal scene.

“I didn’t feel that connection with the audience anymore and I just needed to get my break from it,” he told Bloodstock TV in 2022.

The band returned to festival performances in 2022, with a surprise set on the second stage of UK weekender Bloodstock Open Air, and the same year they co-headlined a European run with Amon Amarth.

This August, they returned to Bloodstock, this time as a main-stage headliner. Metal Hammer’s Rich Hobson gave the show a four-and-a-half-star writeup, calling it “an explosive, emotional headline set”. More importantly, my mum gave the show 11 out of 10 on Hammer’s social media and wrote, “Holy shit!”

Machine Head released their latest album, Unatoned, to a positive response in April, including another four-and-a-half-star review from Hammer’s Dom Lawson.

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Machine Head 2026 European tour dates:

Apr 11: Copenhagen Vega, Denmark
Apr 13: Hamburg Inselparkhalle, Germany
Apr 15: Warsaw Progresja, Poland
Apr 17: Zwickau Stadthalle, Germany
Apr 18: Berlin Columbiahalle, Germany
Apr 19: Vienna Gasometer, Austria
Apr 20: Munich TonHalle, Germany
Apr 22: Milan Alcatraz, Italy
Apr 23: Marseille Espace Julien, France
Apr 24: Balma Interférence, France
Apr 25: Villava Sala Totem Aretoa, Spain
Apr 27: Madrid Sala Raviera, Spain
Apr 28: Lisbon LAV, Portugal
Apr 29: Málaga Sala París 15, Spain
Apr 30: Barcelona Razzmatazz 1, Spain
May 02: Paris L’Olympia, France
May 03: Strasbourg La Laiterie, France
May 04: Saarbrücken Saarlandhalle, Germany
May 06: Ludwigsberg MHP Arena, Germany
May 07: Wiesbaden Schlachtof, Germany
May 08: Cologne Palladium, Germany
May 09: Fribourg FRI-Son, Switzerland
May 11: Tilburg Escape Room 013, Netherlands
May 12: Brussels Ancienne Belgique, Belgium

May 14: Glasgow O2 Academy, UK
May 15: Manchester O2 Victoria Warehouse, UK
May 16 Wolverhampton Civic Hall, UK
May 17: London O2 Academy Brixton, UK

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.

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