Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde has confirmed he’s taking part in the reported Pantera tour.
Last week, Billboard reported that surviving members Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown would be reviving the “Walk” outfit for a tour in 2023, later adding that Wylde and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante would be filling in for the late Abbott brothers, “Dimebag” Darrell and Vinnie Paul.
Speaking with the Danny Wimmer Presents YouTube channel, Wylde characterizes the tour as a Pantera “celebration,” comparing it to if Jimi Hendrix‘s bandmates Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell asked Eric Clapton to play the “Purple Haze” legend’s song with them on a Jimi Hendrix Celebration tour.
“You’re celebrating Vinnie and Dime’s greatness, and you’re celebrating all the mountains that Pantera conquered and crushed,” Wylde explains. “I think it’s a beautiful thing.”
“Obviously, it’s not Pantera,” he continues. “Pantera’s those four guys: it’s Phil, Rex, Dime and Vinnie. But it was just like when [Led] Zeppelin went out with [son of late drummer John Bonham] Jason Bonham it was phenomenal…it’s a great thing just to hear them play that music again.”
Neither Anselmo nor Brown has publicly commented on the reports, nor has any of the official Pantera channels. Benante, meanwhile, seemed to echo Wylde’s statements in a tweet defining the word “celebration” as “the action of marking one’s pleasure at an important event or occasion (concert) by engaging in enjoyable, typically social, activity.”
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