Pantera, with special guests SNAFU and Amon Amarth, revisit their groove metal canon as ‘The Heaviest Tour of the Summer’ continues outside Chicago.
Everything we do is for Dimebag and Vince,” said Phil Anselmo early in the set as Pantera’s headlining tour continued Saturday night just outside the Windy City at Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, Illinois. “Sing it, Chicago!” he shouted midway through “5 Minutes Alone.”
Following the last performance to feature the group’s most prominent lineup in 2001, and after the death of co-founding guitarist Dimebag Darrell (who was assassinated on stage in Columbus, Ohio in 2004) and his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott (who passed in 2018), singer Phil Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown put Pantera back together for a pair of performances in late 2022, hitting the road with Metallica soon after in the form of a supergroup touting touring members Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society) on guitar and drummer Charlie Benante (Anthrax).
Pantera’s place in heavy music history is hard to overstate, with the group creating some of the most catchy, melodic music in the history of heavy metal, finding their true footing upon release of their seminal fifth studio album Cowboys From Hell (1990) while pioneering the aptly-titled groove metal sound, basically creating their own genre.
As one of the best selling groups in metal history, Pantera sold in excess of 20 million records globally, tallying four platinum albums and one gold album, a gold live album, a platinum best of, one gold video compilation and another trio of platinum home videos (all en route to four Grammy nominations).
Tinley Park marked night three of this leg of the group’s American outing, a run which continues into mid-September ahead of a return to Europe with Metallica in 2026.
“A vulgar legacy,” read the screen as vintage footage of the band ran. The curtain dropped as flames erupted, with pyro shooting out from behind Benante, who was seated at an immense quadruple kick drum kit with a pair of drumheads bearing the visages of Dime and Vinnie Paul.
Following opening cut “Hellbound,” Pantera moved quickly toward “Strength Beyond Strength” as a massive raucous crowd in the supposed 28,000 capacity outdoor venue made their presence known, with the band taking early and consistent notice of the beyond vocal crowd.
“Oh my goodness…” mused Anselmo on stage in Tinley Park, eschewing typical stage banter as he marveled in a seemingly genuine fashion. “I mean, Chicago, this is an exceptional audience,” he continued, requesting the house lights be turned up for a better look.
