New Orleans

Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals Livestream 4/9/21

Anyone who knows me knows Pantera holds a special place in my heart that taps into something very primal. When it was announced the Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals would be doing a stream of nothing but Pantera songs dubbed “A Vulgar Display of Pantera” it was a no-brainer. I have seen Phil and Co. twice now in person and the last time at Aftershock was also a set of only Pantera songs.

I could have swore I saw something that said King Parrot would start at 4 pm PST and Phil would go on at 5 PST but alas when I logged in at 4 pm instead of King Parrot I got a slowed down shot of a hog and two chickens in a coop. After about 15 minutes the feed switched to footage of Phil with the Illegals doing “Utopian” from a past show, which started off a montage of general tomfoolery from previous shows/tours. This assortment of footage concluded with a full performance of “Photographic Taunts” from the Lair and that cut straight into the opening act King Parrot.

Despite my best efforts to familiarize myself with King Parrot beforehand I just never made the time. This being said I cannot give a great assessment but I can say they were not terrible or great. They were allotted about 20 minutes and then it was on to the main presentation.

The switch from King Parrot to Philip H. Anselmo and the Illegals was fraught with technical difficulties. At first there were spotty visuals and then finally the audio kicked in to reveal the band opening with  “Suicide Note Part I.” By the time the feed evened out the band was fairly deep into the song, which I was ready to forget all about when I thought they might go right into “Suicide Note Part II” like the album but no dice. It was a very blue balls way to start off the show and left me feeling the same way I feel when I hear “We Will Rock You” without hearing “We Are the Champions” right behind it.

This blue ball feeling quickly melted away once “A New Level” began. The band was on but Phil was fucking lost from the start so he stopped the band and had them start over. The sound guy was still trying to recover from whatever caused the troubles because it would get quieter then louder but this did not slow the forward momentum down one bit. 

During “Mouth For War” I realized Phil was barefoot rocking “Classic Not Classy” on the back of his sleeveless t-shirt. There is something to be said about being comfortable. This was followed by “Becoming” with the ending of “Throes of Rejection” tacked on. One of my favorites from Reinventing The Steel “We’ll Grind That Axe For A Long Time” was up next, which is when I finally put the pieces together that they were doing an actual concert somewhere with a lessened capacity. That somewhere ended up being The Fillmore in New Orleans for 50 people. Those lucky 50 people were then treated to “Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit” and “Fucking Hostile.”

Before playing “War Nerve” Phil professed that he had never played it with the Illegals and that it was one of his and Dimebag’s favorite songs on the album. I especially got a kick out of “Nice Phil” before he got to the part where he screamed “fuck you all.” “This Love” was nicely done with the help of backup singer Calvin from En Minor.

“I’m Broken” with the ending of “By Demons Be Driven” was followed by a comment of “I’m Sloppy” and an apology saying they were sloppy from not playing live for a year. Whatever perceived sloppiness that existed was erased with a rousing version of  “Strength Beyond Strength” nicely merged with the ending of “Goddamn Electric” and ending of “Suicide Note Part II.”

It was here the band took a short intermission for some “unfinished business,” which ended up being a Dime & Vinnie Tribute as the breakdown of “Living Through Me (Hells’ Wrath)” played underneath. They came out of the break with Suicide Note Part I , Part Deux to make up for the botched beginning of the stream. “Hellbound” was followed by “Domination” and  “Hollow” right where it gets heavy. Crowd pleaser “Walk” was done with a little boy named Roman, which made it even more of a crowd pleaser and then the end of “(Reprise) Sandblasted Skin” concluded the stream.

Altogether this stream got me into it and gave me a taste of the concerts I’ve been missing so dearly. I fucking love Pantera and even though it was not Pantera it knocked me out. The fact that it was actually a live livestream instead of pre-recorded definitely helped and I am pretty sure I have not rocked out harder to another stream. Even though the mouthpiece had weathered a little from years of hard living he was still there. The need for two guitarists to even attempt to recreate what one Mr. Dimebag was able to do speaks volumes to how massive he was. RIP Abbott Bros.

Down Livestream 8/29/20

Back in 2019 Down announced that they would be touring in 2020 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album NOLA…then the pandemic happened. A compromise that would still allow them to play the entire album came in the form of a livestream slated for August 29th, which was awesome except that was the weekend that I was going to be in Nashville with no realistic way to watch. 

Fast-forward a couple days to when Joe saved the day by sharing his link with me and giving me a heads up that I needed to watch before the link went dead. Had I known the link was good to re-watch the livestream for 48 hours afterwards I would have just ponied up the $9 but that’s what friends are for. I started the stream about 20 minutes before the deadline fully expecting to have it cut out but much to my surprise the links worked all the way through both parts.

This livestream was professionally produced and just well done overall, a stark contrast to the couple raw ones I previously watched. It was more like a concert film minus a live crowd combined with vignettes about how the band/album came to be and the indigenous people of New Orleans. The quality of the video and sound were both outstanding, as was the band’s damn near flawless performance of the songs. In between songs Phil expressed gratitude by giving a shout out to different countries of the world in a way that was both sincere and unintentionally hilarious. Down did not play the songs in the same order as they appeared on the album but they did play all of them and then ran through a handful of choice cuts from their other material. The songs from NOLA have stood the test of time and thankfully the band members were still standing long enough to give this gift back to the fans.