It's been 21 years since metal legends Pantera performed their last concert ever. They were on their Extreme Steel tour which touched down at the Beast Feast in Yokohama, Japan on August 26th in 2001.
The tour saw Pantera on the road with other legendary metal icons like Slayer, Static-X, Skrape and Morbid Angel, performing to massive crowds. Alas, the tour was trouble in paradise for the band.
“The tour seemed to go on forever,” bassist Rex Brown wrote in his memoir, Official Truth, 101 Proof. “The financial offers were great, but because we felt like we were in a marriage that was going south, that just didn’t matter anymore. Something had to give sooner rather than later.”
While tensions were high during their last gig in Japan - they still managed to perform a fierce 11-song set at the festival that included cuts like "Hellbound," "War Nerve," "Revolution Is My Nerve," and even got Kerry King from Slayer to join them on "Fucking Hostile" and Biohazard's Evan Seinfeld for their encore / grand finale of "Walk."
Watch a video from their last show below:
And see the complete setlist here:
While there was a whole European tour planned weeks later, the planes hit the World Trade Center while they were in Dublin and they ended up cancelling the tour before they did a single date. It was then that Pantera went on indefinite hiatus, until a deranged fan killed Dimebag Darrell in 2004, putting an end to the group forever.
While fans still held out for some kind of reunion, Brown told MTV in 2013:
"I don’t really think there’ll ever be another Pantera without Dime in it. So, it’s a very complicated story. At the same time, it’d be nice to maybe play a couple shows and have a bunch of guest stars. But as far as reunion, there’s no reunion, man. Dime’s dead.”
Former drummer Vinnie Paul ended up passing away a year ago at age 54. It was then that Philip Anselmo performed some Pantera tracks with his band The Illegals in tribute, but don't expect it to be a reoccurring thing. He told Blabbermouth:
"I'd like it to be just for now. For me, PANTERA was PANTERA and there's no substitute. So playing those songs, I didn't mind doing it for a one-off thing here and there with a group of guys — we used to do it in 'Metal Masters', [with] Kerry King and the ANTHRAX guys. But I wasn't going to learn a set of PANTERA with another band. I didn't feel entitled to do that. It's not like I feel entitled now. I feel now it's necessary."
[Ed note: This article was originally published in 2018]
August 2022 update: We learned last month that Pantera had planned to reunite for some shows in 2023, but today they confirmed that those first dates will be later this year. The first batch of select shows will be in December as part of Slipknot's Knotfest in South America (Brazil, Chile, Columbia). Before that, they'll play Hell and Heaven Open Air in Mexico City as the first night headliner of the 3-day festival.
