Machine Head Have Postponed Their Fall Tour with Children of Bodom, Epica and Battlecross

Well, this sucks: that big Machine Head headlining tour that was scheduled for this fall? Completely canceled.

The band announced the news on their Facebook page last night. The tl;dr version is “our new album isn’t completely finished yet and we really need to do that.” Here’s the full statement if you want more:

It is with great disappointment that Machine Head must announce the postponement of our North American tour this fall. Our new album “Bloodstone & Diamonds” has taken longer to complete than expected and we had to make the difficult choice to either delay the album, let it go out as incomplete, or cancel the tour in order to properly finish and promote the album in the caliber it needs to be done. We decided postponing the tour was the best decision for the record.

We feel this record is a milestone, we feel we have something truly special here, but getting there has been a challenge. Our vocalist / guitarist Robb Flynn just returned from a press tour where he was playing rough mixes and incomplete versions of songs for the press just to try and keep everything on time for our November release date.

Refunds will be available for tickets at point of purchase.

Look out for rescheduled American tour dates for the beginning of the year.

All scheduled European tour dates will remain as scheduled.

This is kind of a weird thing to think about, but two bands on this tour are European — Children of Bodom and Epica — and presumably they already had flights booked to the U.S. With all the bandmembers and their crew that ain’t cheap, probably in between $5k and $10k for each band. So who takes on that cost now? If those tickets weren’t refundable (most aren’t), can the dates be moved or is it a sunk cost? If I were those two bands I’d be pretty peeved right about now. But hopefully Machine Head make good on their promise and this tour goes on as planned in early 2015.

Bloodstone & Diamonds comes out on November 8th via new label Nuclear Blast… hopefully! Get details on and artwork for the album here.