Following an uproar regarding the racist remarks of vocalist Philip Anselmo, PANTERA‘s performances at two German rock festivals this spring have been called off.
The newly-formed PANTERA lineup – featuring Anselmo and Rex Brown on bass, alongside Zakk Wylde on guitar (Ozzy Osbourne, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY) and Charlie Benante on drums (ANTHRAX) – was set to appear at Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park, two simultaneous festivals taking place June 2-4 in Nürburgring and Nürnberg. After thorough conversations with performers, associates and fans, the festival organizers have decided to take PANTERA off the lineup.
On Monday night (January 23), the organizers of Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park took to Twitter to share the same message: “The band PANTERA will not perform at Rock Im Park and Rock Am Ring 2023 as announced.”
The majority of the criticism came from Anselmo‘s N*zi-like salutation at the “Dimebash” celebration for the late PANTERA guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott in January 2016 at Lucky Strike Live in Hollywood. He seemed to say “white power” with the movement, yet later clarified that he was only joking about consuming white wine backstage and was responding to the spectators up front who, he said, were mocking him.
People also raised questions about Rock Am Ring occurring in Nürnberg (also known as Nuremberg), the same place where supporters of Hitler had held a series of mass N*zi rallies from 1933 to 1938.
