MACHINE HEAD with In Flames, Lacuna Coil, and Unearth
The Wiltern
Los Angeles, CA
04.10.25
LIVE REVIEW AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARILYN BELL
Boston metalcore band Unearth kicked off what should have been a marathon night of metal at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 10, 2025. Unearth has been opening and co-headlining everything from metal tours and the big European metal festivals to Warped Tour for nearly three decades. With Lacuna Coil and In Flames on second and third, an opening slot on this tour is still impressive and Unearth still set the bar high for the rest of the night.
With all the vocalists on this tour featured on Machine Head’s, as Robb Flynn says, “Wu Tang Clan-level thrash collaboration,” “These Scars Won’t Define Us,” there was hope for an Unearth appearance during Machine Head’s set, but none of the other vocalists on the bill joined the stage for that song.
After Unearth’s blistering set, Italy’s goth metallers Lacuna Coil took the stage. Led by Christina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro’s dueling and complimentary vocals, the band kept the momentum building. Their goth identity may be more in appearance now than music, but they commanded the stage with an almost arena rock presence. The set ranged from new songs off this year’s Century Media Records release Sleepless Empire, including “Gravity” and “I Wish You Were D3ad” to old favorites like “Blood, Tears, Dust.” The Italians set the stage for Sweden’s In Flames to continue the onslaught of European metal.
In Flames played a 13-song set hitting most of the albums released during longstanding members Anders Fridén’s and Björn Gelotte’s time in the band, going back to 1999’s Colony and including three tracks from the latest release, Foregone. The band lineup for the night was stacked, and the powerhouse attack by In Flames could have easily been a headlining set. It clocked in a bit longer than the sub-hour appearance that followed by Machine Head.
Robb Flynn led his Oakland based thrash band Machine Head through a condensed set leaving many fans wanting more. Flynn attempted to keep the energy high with frequent calls for circle pits and launching into fan-favorite “Ten Ton Hammer” for the second song. The half walls partitioning off the pit at The Wiltern must not have provided room for a big enough pit to satisfy him. The abridged set ended up only being nine songs, with two off the previous record and the aforementioned “These Scars Won’t Define Us” off Unatoned to be released this month. “Davidian,” which has been part of a four-song encore on the rest of the tour, was swapped in for the final song before the show abruptly ended to the confusion of the crowd. While there was no encore in Los Angeles, the following night at the Affliction Clothing HQ for Jose Mangin’s Headbang for Science charity, the band played for hours mixing in some covers and live debuts. Comparatively, the crowd at the Wiltern was shortchanged.
