Pantera
3Arena, Dublin
★★★★
The curtain drops and the standing section instantly erupts. They’ve waited a long time for this. Texan metal monsters Pantera are on stage at the 3Arena, almost 33 years after they last played the venue.
A barefoot Phil Anselmo bestrides the stage, arms outstretched beckoning the crowd to go nuts. They oblige. They were here early and they’ve been whipped up well by Australian grindcore outfit King Parrot and impressive Dallas thrashers Power Trip, with lads getting sweaty, shirtless and crowd surfing long before the headliners turn up.
The singer tells the crowd that Dublin was the first place to sell out when the tickets were released for this part-reunion part-tribute tour for the groove metal pioneers. It’s no wonder, given they haven’t played here since SFX in 1993.
The band got stuck in Dublin for a few days in September 2001 when their return to the Point was derailed by international travel restrictions days after 9/11. They haven’t been back since and quite a bit has happened in the meantime.
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They broke up shortly after that, in 2003, following years of strained relationships. A year later, founding member and guitarist Dimebag Darrell was shot dead by a fan while on stage with Damageplan, the band he started after Pantera. His brother, Pantera’s drummer Vinnie Paul, died of heart disease in 2018. Anselmo had fallen out with both of them over the years and endured struggles with substance abuse, almost dying of a heroin overdose in 1996.
In 2022, Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown reformed the band, with Black Label Society’s Zakk Wylde, also known for being Ozzy Osborne’s lead guitarist, and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante filling in for the late Abbott brothers.
Anslemo said on a podcast a few years ago: “I know for a damn fact Vince and Dime would want us to do this, hands down.
“They would want the Pantera brand or the legacy to go on. And I don’t know what you believe in, but sometimes, you know, you would like to think that them old fellas are looking down on us, giving us the thumbs up.”
The return hasn’t been without controversy. A number of planned concerts in Germany were cancelled two years ago after a fan backlash over a 2016 incident in which a drunken Anselmo made a Nazi salute and yelled “white power” at a concert. He later apologised saying “anyone who knows my true nature knows that I don’t believe in any of that”. The band played three gigs in Germany earlier this month.
Whatever you think of Anselmo, he’s still a hell of a frontman. Wearing a “Dis grace yourself” T-shirt and a permanent “stank face”, he owns the stage with his growling vocals, even if some of the Rob Halford-esque high notes of his youth seem a tough ask at 56. Cemetery Gates is a notable absence from the set list.
He said it was an honour to be back in Dublin after three decades. “Y’all are old, man ... Nah, it’s the other way around. But with that we got this whole new audience ... Most of you guys have been listening to us your entire f**king lives.”
Looking around the venue at some fresh faces and some grey-haired metalheads, it seems to be a little of column A and little of column B.
Seminal early 1990s albums A Vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven make up the bulk of the set list, with Becoming really kick-starting proceedings. Anselmo conducts the Olés before launching into Five Minutes Alone, which sparks a bunch of mosh pits down below.
Floods' melodic meandering groove accompanies a slightly overwrought video montage tribute to Darrell and Paul before its brutal breakdowns and emotional solo outro. Anselmo urges the crowd to “crack their knuckles and sing with their fists” before they nearly take the roof off the arena for Walk, Domination and Cowboys from Hell.
An encore of Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit brings a standing ovation and, while there’s some grumbling about Wylde’s flourishes on guitar and that it’s not the quite the same without the Abbotts, a raucous crowd go home happy.
Thirty-two years. It was worth the wait.
