Full Review by The Riff Report Blog – July 5, 2025
Stage: Back To The Beginning Main Stage
Band: PANTERA (USA / Legend Reforged)
Time: Right between hellfire and the holy groove ⚡🤘
⚔️ “RE… SPECT… WALK!” – PANTERA BRING THE DOMINATION BACK TO BIRMINGHAM 🐍
If you could bottle aggression, pour it over riffs the size of buildings, and light it with a flamethrower… you’d get Pantera at Villa Park.
Back together with the blessing of the Abbott family legacy, and now fronted by Phil Anselmo in peak primal scream mode, Pantera took to the stage like metal warlords on a mission: to honour, to annihilate, and to remind the world why they were gods of groove metal. 🖤
💥 THE SETLIST – NOTHING BUT CLASSIC, CRUSHING BRUTALITY
- A New Level (and that level = total destruction)
- Mouth for War
- Strength Beyond Strength
- Becoming (yes, with those pitch-shifted drums 🤯)
- I’m Broken (crowd scream-along: deafening)
- 5 Minutes Alone 🔪
- This Love (a proper emotional sledgehammer)
- Suicide Note Pt. II
- Yesterday Don’t Mean Sh*t
- Floods (guitar solo = goosebumps, tears, full-body possession)
- Cowboys From Hell 🤠🔥
- Walk (possibly the loudest crowd chant of the entire weekend)
- Domination / Hollow (with Dimebag & Vinnie footage on screen 😭)
🎤 PHIL ANSELMO – AGED, GRIZZLED, AND STILL A VOICE OF FURY
Phil strode out with the weight of Pantera’s legacy on his shoulders and a fire in his gut. Older? Sure. Softer? Not a chance. That roar on “Walk” could melt concrete. His stage banter was equal parts gritty, emotional, and hilarious.
At one point he stopped the show and yelled:
“This one’s for Dime. For Vinnie. For every single one of you that still believes in this band. Let’s f*ing GO!”**
And then launched into “5 Minutes Alone” with the rage of a thousand riots.
🥁 CHARLIE BENANTE – SLAYER MEETS PANTERA = CHAOS DRUMMED INTO EXISTENCE
The Anthrax skin-smasher more than held it down. His double-kick on “Becoming”? Straight sorcery. The “Domination” breakdown? Sounded like tanks rolling through Birmingham city centre.
He honoured Vinnie’s groove while still adding that New York hardcore snap. Crowd = moshing like possessed wildebeests.
🎸 ZAKK WYLDE – A LIVING TRIBUTE TO DIMEBAG 🔊💚
Zakk didn’t replace Dimebag — he resurrected him. The signature squeals, the divebombs, the soul in “Floods”… he played like a man possessed by the ghost of Dime while riding a flaming Les Paul through Valhalla.
“Floods” solo = tears. Actual tears. People hugging. One guy proposed.
His stage presence? Viking meets shred demon. Absolute scenes.
🧱 REX BROWN – THE UNMOVABLE OBJECT
The man laid down the filthiest, thickest bass tone all night, keeping the Pantera groove glued together like whiskey-soaked concrete.
“Cowboys From Hell” hit like a freight train driven by Lemmy. Bass rumble = stomach realignment.
💀 THE CROWD – MOSH PIT OF GLORY AND PAIN
Pits opened up like wormholes. During “Mouth for War,” someone body-surfed in a wheelchair. During “Domination,” a full Wall of Death formed from end to end.
People were crying, bleeding, and screaming like they’d just seen God and he had a beard and camo shorts.
One man in the crowd screamed “PANTERA ARE MY CHURCH!” while chugging a Carling. Bless him.
🕯️ MOST POWERFUL MOMENT – “DOMINATION / HOLLOW” TRIBUTE
The lights dropped. Footage of Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul lit up the screens.
Phil knelt. Zakk stared skyward. And as the band launched into “Domination,” it felt like those two legends were right there with us.
Thousands of fists raised. Eyes wet. Grown metalheads weeping openly.
Only Pantera could make devastation feel like healing.
🎯 FINAL VERDICT: THE LEGACY LIVES, AND IT F***ING CRUSHES
This wasn’t nostalgia. This wasn’t a tribute act.
This was PANTERA.
Brutal. Beautiful. Bone-breaking. Soul-shaking.
Score: 13/10 Vulgar Displays of POWER 💪🎸
Mood: Smashed, emotional, reborn in riff.
Diolch, Pantera – for giving us one more ride on the steel horse of destruction.
