MACHINE HEAD frontman Robert Flynn has checked in with the following update from Europe:

"Hey, hey, hey, fuckers.

Just checkin' in from a hotel in Hamburg, recovering from what was the mother of all after-parties last night... good GOD!? More on that later. It's actually been pretty nice over here in Europe for a change, it's been a little rainy here and there but for the most part it's been warm and sunny, which is a nice change. Usually Euro festival season involves rain jackets and parkas.

Of the shows we've done so far, the first one in Luxembourg was sick as all hell, Switzerland was seriously fuckin' retardo, but it was the insane mayhem of Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park that have been the rowdiest German festivals we've done in a LONG fuckin' while... maybe even the craziest. SOOOOOO much better than last time we played Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park. Better weather, WAY better crowd, and it definitely seemed like the fact that it was kind of a 'metal' stage made a huge difference in bringing together a united front. It was great bumping into friends we hadn’t seen in a while. Belgium was fuckin' rad and it seemed like they actually got crazier as the show went on, Randy from LoG gave us a sweet 'Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast!' that night, it was fuckin' killer.

But dudes and dudettes... it is the mighty, MIGHTY Glasgow, Scotland that once again raises the fucking bar to unparalleled heights... HOLY... FUCKING... CRAP!!!??? The good people of Glasgow are most certainly and genuinely out of their collective minds, my GOD! Frankly, it was like a friggin' religious experience. It was so fucking HOT in there, yet the sing-a-longs were unreal, and the circle pit during 'Davidian' was just inhuman. Hands down the best circle pit so far (we didn't even have to ask 'em for it!), and I have my doubts as to whether it will be beat by anyone else on this run. It was great seeing the LoG dudes (Willie Adler was CRUNK) and the CHIMAIRA dudes again, had a blast partying with them. Chimaira were especially cool to see since we hadn’t seen those boys in way too long, and they fuckin brought it!!!

Belfast was in-fucking-sane, and was nearly as crazy as Glasgow, unbelievably... those fuckers are ballistic! We ended up having to swap places with our co-headliners KILLSWITCH ENGAGE at the last minute, they closed the show so that we wouldn't miss the ferry to Donington, but holy shit... seriously Belfast, you were fan-fucking-tastic!

But Donington, DUDE, Donington!!!!!! Goddamn!!!!!! It was out of this fucking world!!! We have never gotten a response so rapturous. It was unreal. The jumping, the clapping, the thrashing, the singing, at least 10 circle pits during 'Davidian' (!!!!)... it was easily one of the single greatest shows this band has ever played. WOW!!! Did a radio interview with the mighty Bruce Dickinson of (Download headliner) IRON Fucking MAIDEN after the show and he declared us "band of the weekend"... and the weekend wasn't even over??!! He then proceeded to tell me how his son and all his mates listen to nothing but The Blackening and how sick of listening to The Blackening he is, but that he had to give it up to us, he said we had written a phenomenal record that every 16 year-old kid was listening to, and then, went back into how crushing our show just was. My brain basically imploded at that point... literally... it short-circuited... and I spent the rest of the interview having flashbacks to being 14 years-old staring at the Number Of The Beast album for hours on end. Jesus!?

Check the 5K Kerrang! review here.

The Metal Hammer(ed) Awards were equally mindblowing, aside from the fact that the sold out Koko Club chanted 'Machine Fucking Head' every 5 minutes for 3 hours non-stop - they actually chanted when other bands won too, to the point where the Awards people had to ask us to tell our fans to stop 'Machine Fucking Head-ing' people off the stage, to which of course Dave McClain promptly replied, 'Hell fuckin’ no we're not!' It was fucking insane. We won Album of the Year, and yours truly won a Golden God, or as I joked, a Golden Sod Award. I drew a 'Z' on it (Godz) and brought the guys up to share the award with me, as I was a bit uncomfortable without them. We then played a 3-song set that was as intense as any show we've done; one dude was chanting for a chug-a-lug, so I brought him onstage to chug with me, we did a ridiculous chug-a-lug, then Jamey Jasta (who hosted, and is a killer fuckin' host!) gave him some Jager to chug, the kid did a fucking sick stage dive, and we proceeded to reduce what was once a fairly dignified awards ceremony to a kegger party... WOO-HOO, job well done!!!

Seriously, to the Head-Cases who came out for Machine Head on this run, you are THE most passionate, die hard, incredible, insane, intense, loyal, un-fucking-believable motherfuckers on the entire planet earth!!! Lots of bands say they have the best fans in the whole world, but Machine Head actually DOES!!!

AND, just added to the Believe It Or Not file, during the awards ceremony, Mr. Kerry King came up to me, and Kerry and I finally... FINALLY... squashed the beef. Yes indeedy, the Metal Hammer Awards: bringing knuckleheads together since 2002... EEEEEeeeeeeeee! And I'm not gonna front, it was a very cool moment. We even gave each other man-hugs and shit - you know, lots of patting, and hard squeezes. Respect.

We announced The Black Crusade Tour which will be happening in the U.K./Europe come November, really fuckin' stoked about that, it's gonna be massive. We're going to be hitting the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Australia too, all in the next 6 months. Hoping to try and get in a Mexico show or 2 also, just cause we've heard from a few bands that it's fuckin' SICK down there.

So yeah man, shit is going pretty fucking incredible for The Head at the moment, although it hasn’t all been swell. This tour does hold one very grievous moment for me personally.

My dog Jozi died a few days ago. Jozi had been a huge part our lives for 13 years, she was like our first kid. She did everything with us, and she was a great dog, man... she really was one of a kind. She was a Pitbull, but she was the chillest Pit I’ve ever been around. She was great around the kids, great around people, just a happy fuckin' dog, man. She had gotten a cancerous lump about the size of a golf ball on her left buttock about 6 months ago, so we had it removed, and they said they got it all, but it started coming back recently. About 5 days ago she stopped eating, wouldn't move, and by the end of the night she was peeing and pooping uncontrollably. My wife Genevra took her to the vet, they did an ultrasound on her, and found an apple-sized tumor in her stomach attached to her spleen and her intestines. It was malignant, it was leaking crap, and her bloodstream had become septic. We frantically looked into everything...

There was nothing we could do.

We made the decision to put her to sleep at the house (rather than the Vet) the next day, but 4 hours after she left the hospital she took a turn for the worse, and my wife had to have the doctor come that night. I had said my goodbyes to her earlier over the phone while she was semi-coherent, and was mentally preparing for the next day, but stupidly turned off my fuckin' phone, and never got the call that things had taken a turn for the worse. It sucked.

It happened so fast... 2 days... and she was gone.

Enough.

Here is to my Dog of Dogs, my real dog.

Rest in peace, Pooperdoop."