Machine Head released Machine Fucking Head Live on November 13, 2012, through Roadrunner Records. Issued on CD and digitally, the double album gathered 15 performances from the Unto the Locust touring cycle, updating a live catalog whose previous full-length audio release, Hellalive, had arrived in 2003. In the intervening years, the band had added three studio albums to its repertoire.
There was a practical reason to make an audio release. Robb Flynn told ARTISTdirect in a 2012 interview, excerpted by Blabbermouth, that plans for a U.S. concert DVD hadn’t come together. He also saw a gap in what the band had captured. Hellalive covered material through Supercharger, while the Elegies DVD represented the Through the Ashes of Empires period. The songs from The Blackening and Unto the Locust needed their own live document.
The selection put that newer material at the center. Six of the seven songs on Unto the Locust appeared, with only “Pearls Before the Swine” absent. “I Am Hell (Sonata in C#)” and “Be Still and Know” opened the album, just as they opened the studio record. Three songs from The Blackening added to that emphasis, accounting together for nine of the live album’s 15 tracks. Older songs still gave it a route back through the catalog. “Imperium” connected the newer records to Through the Ashes of Empires, while “Old” and the closing “Davidian” reached back to Burn My Eyes. The running order moved between those periods instead of presenting the band’s history chronologically. “Halo” led directly into “Davidian” at the finish, pairing a song from The Blackening with one from the debut.
Choosing the performances involved more than finding clean takes. In a December 2012 Full Metal Jackie interview published by Loudwire, Flynn said he judged both the band’s playing and the audience’s response. A strong performance needed a crowd that was involved, and he wanted the audience heard on each recording to be the people actually at that show. Missed notes and cracks in his voice remained audible. Flynn and Juan Urteaga mixed and mastered the album at Trident Studios in Pacheco, California. As they worked, Flynn kept asking for more crowd volume, even when the engineer warned about phase problems. “We’re not the stars of this album, the fans, the head cases, those are the stars of this record,” he told Jackie. That decision gave the audience a deliberate place in the finished mix.
The deluxe digital edition also offered a different view of the material: it added 2011 demos of “Locust” and “This Is the End,” alongside “My Misery” and “Alan’s on Fire.” Those demos let listeners compare earlier versions of two songs with their live performances in the same package. Preorders also included a separate six-track EP of B-sides and rarities, combining covers with additional demos from the Unto the Locust sessions.
The recordings featured Flynn, guitarist Phil Demmel, bassist Adam Duce and drummer Dave McClain. Within months, that lineup changed: Machine Head announced Duce’s departure in February 2013. Machine Fucking Head Live was the final album released during his tenure.
