Pantera Reschedules Canceled Festival Dates
Two new Pantera tour dates in Germany were announced via social media in the early morning hours today, via social media. According to the band, they’ll now be playing Stuttgart on June 2 and Dresden on June 3. If those dates ring a bell, that’s because Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park, the two festivals they were kicked off of earlier this year, are happening at the exact same time.
With these new dates being the replacement for those festival gigs, this kinda puts Pantera fans in that region in a bit of a bind, since they now have to decide if they’re going to one or two massive festivals or if they’re going to travel to those other towns to see the tribute act perform.
Earlier this year, Pantera’s scheduled performances for Germany’s Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park festivals were canceled by organizers after facing backlash from potentially platforming vocalist Phil Anselmo, who’d landed in hot water in the past for racist remarks and gestures. Though the incidents haven’t happened for years, they were numerous enough and high profile enough to have activists in that country up in arms about letting Pantera play those massive festival dates.
Much of the blowback seemingly came from the German Green party, which told the Nürnberg city council that Anselmo “repeatedly and deliberately made Nazi gestures and yelled racist slogans.” Recently, a German author also called for a boycott against Pantera at the tail end of 2022.
Organizers apparently based their decision not just on fan reaction, but also had discussions with artists and partners before opting to remove Pantera from the bills.
It’ll be interesting to see how those two new dates pan out, since tickets for both festivals have been on sale for a while and aren’t cheap in the slightest. Kinda puts that region’s fans in a bit of a bind. Still, Pantera’s got a huge itinerary planned for this year and 2024, so there will be multiple chances to see them live.
Ticket sales for the Stuttgart and Dresden dates will go live on March 3 at 11 a.m. CET.
