MEGADETH Production Assistant/Band Assistant Rikki Cameron has issued the following road update:

"Here we are at the end of our European Summer Tour of 2010. Show day #2 from Moscow, Russia. Two more shows and we'll happily be back on American soil. I have come down to the venue early today to enjoy the peace and quiet and get some work done before the band and crew arrive. I spent several years working for the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio, quite often being the first one in and the last one out. I can't describe the calming effect it has on me, being here so early and watching a building slowly come to life. It starts slow, by mid day, things are going at a fairly fast pace, then it's show time and everything's going at full power. The building is filled with sweaty, excited people and the energy is amazing. Then you frantically hurry to get your job finished so that the night is over and you sit back and review the day. The place smells disgusting, lots of sweat, beer, etc and you'd never want to walk around without boots on, through all of the mess. But the building starts to take that calm again. It gets quiet, but remnants of that energy remains for hours. While just another day to me, to some people in that room, that was the greatest night of their life. Or something that will stay in their memory for a long time. Contributing even in the smallest way, is something that has always made me happy and many years ago, I decided that I never wanted to do anything else. I'm truly blessed to be one of the few who knows what they want out of life and has the opportunity to actually do it. I'm even more blessed to be doing with such a wonderful group of people. Now if I could be fortunate enough to have a blackberry that works all the time, I'd be the luckiest girl on the planet. ;)

Looking back at this year, it's really hard to try to put it all into prospective for everyone. From March 1st till July 17th (when we get home), with Megadeth, we will have done 65 shows in 37 different countries on 3 continents in 139 days. I wish I had a figure for the number of fans we've played to, but that number has to be so large that it makes my head hurt. In a good way, of course. We have played some of the best shows I've ever done, and also some of the worst, and at the end of the day, it's just another show. The fans went home happy, so it's all good. We've done lots of headliner shows, did a fantastic run in the US with Testament and Exodus. Played some amazing festivals here in Europe - Download, Sonisphere (8 of them actually), Tuska (Helsinki REALLY knows how to put on a metal fest! That was brilliant!) Getaway Rock Festival, and I'm sure there are others that my tired brain is not remembering. We've made history. It's still hard to digest this. We got on the stage, 7 times, with 3 of the biggest, most bad ass metal bands in the world, METALLICA, SLAYER, and ANTHRAX. And in Bulgaria, we got to share that with the world. We had our fair share of nightmare moments (Istanbul as a fly date was a rough one. Didn't have half of our gear, got in super late, talk about the ultimate pressure under the gun. We did it though!), but I know I'm not alone in saying, I can seriously chalk those up as some of my best times ever. Everyone wants to know what it was like for Megadeth to play with Metallica. It was outstanding. Everyone from both camps was so excited that life brought these two giants together like this and it was far beyond any of our expectations. Metallica was wonderfully gracious to all of us and even the band themselves were very down to earth. You didn't feel like they were metal giants, you felt like they were the buddies you went to school with. And Anthrax and Slayer, what can I say there. I cannot wait till the second leg of American Carnage to be reunited with them again. All around fantastic guys, super fun to be doing shows with (and days off.....). The first leg is going to be so good to see our friends with Testament again. We ran into them at the Helsinki airport (literally. They were waiting to board the plane that we were getting off of. How's that for coincidence!), so while we missed their set, at least it was really nice to get to see them. Lots of new friends too (for me at least). THE DEFTONES, ALICE IN CHAINS, CANNIBAL CORPSE - Shawn tells me they're really brutal, so I'm going to go with that. I know they have very large necks and are nice guys.

When everything is running at top speed, you go through a lot of 'don't think, just do.' I haven't really had the time to sit down and make sense of all of this yet. I'm tired. We're all tired. I'm tired of McDonalds and I've actually developed somewhat of an appreciation for Starbucks (David Ellefson and Chris Broderick are proud, I'm sure). I've lost a few pounds, a little bit of sanity, and a small amount of hair coloring. Grey hairs happen to the best of us (not naming names, but you know who you are. lol). I've gained a lot of stamps in my passport, seen some historic sites across the globe, a vast amount of new friends, lots of video and camera footage (which I hope to be releasing soon),and gained even more respect and appreciation for my cohorts out here, if that's even possible. The year is halfway over and we have so much more in store. I'm looking forward to at least being able to use my phone again and not having outrageous phone bills. Thank goodness at least for my temperamental blackberry (sorry Iphone. I tried you. Couldn't do it.) In three days time, I'm going to go home for a total of 48 hours and then I'm going to head to Canada and get the ball rolling for Canadian Carnage. So, I'm saying Farewell, Europe. You've been good, you've been bad, you've been long, but you've been fun. And thanks to all of you for being part of it.

I'm leaving you with an awesome photo taken from our angle on the stage (below), photo credit due to my awesome little buddy, Miss Electra Mustaine, from the Sonisphere in Athens, Greece. And a photo I took of Megadeth's stage bow (up top) in Prague, Czech Republic from beside Shawn's drum kit, so you can see how it all looks to us. Thank you, Megadeth fans, for all the love from around the world!"