Fox Reviews Rock

For today’s gig I am swapping Rex for Cozzer, Rex and I bought him a ticket as a wedding present which he found to be a nice surprise.

The day before Rex and I were in Leeds to see Set It Off (which you can read here) so I was glad we were seating for Pantera, and we also found it entertaining that I was driving the opposite direction for this gig, but at least it made it easier to pick up Cozzer on the way. When we arrived at the arena car park we found they were charging £17 parking for the show!

Once inside the arena we looked at the merchandise where they had a great selection of all three bands, however they were charging £40 for a hat, the same price as a t-shirt! We checked out the food in the venue which also seemed expensive compared to other venues we’ve been too. All this on top of the price of tickets, you can see how people get priced out of going to shows.

We took out seats for the first band of the night was King Parrot; a grindcore band from Melbourne, Australia. Kicking off their set with ‘Get What Ya Given’ and ‘Epileptic Butcher’ we thought they had a lot of crowd interaction with swearing a lot and asking who was better, AD/DC or Black Sabbath, with Sabbath hailing from Birmingham, they got the biggest cheer with the bassist agreeing.

King Parrot continued the set with ‘Bozo’ and ‘Hell Comes Your Way’, sometimes I thought they sounded like a combination of Donnie from the Wild Thornberrys mixed with Brain Johnson, which I found fun. They played 11 songs and ended with ‘Fuck You and the Horse You Rode In On’, they got everyone pumped for a night of metal!

Power Trip was the next band on who seemed very popular with the crowd, this was also the 4th time Cozzer has seen them too, so we were definitely excited. They are a thrash metal band from Dallas Texas and with a new singer Seth Gilmore who has been with them since 2023.

They opened up with ‘Soul Sacrifice’ & ‘Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)’, they sounded really good live which transcended onto the crowd as a big mosh pit appeared and everyone head banging.

Power Trip played 8 songs in total finishing with ‘Manifest Decimation’, it’s a shame they didn’t have time for more songs as we really enjoyed them.

The reason we’re all here, it’s finally time for Pantera! I and a lot of people have been waiting a long time to see these live, as they broke up in 2003 and reformed in 2022 with Zack Wylde on guitar, although Cozzer did catch them at Download Festival last year!

Phil (Lead Singer) came out wearing a King Parrot top which is a really nice touch to show support for your opening band. He named every song before playing, opening up with ‘A New Level’ & ‘Mouth for War’, the lighting effects and pyrotechnics were amazing throughout the show.

Pantera paid tribute to two past members Dimebag Darrel & Vinnie Paul by devoting every song to them, their faces were on the drum kit and numerous videos and pictures were shown on the big screen.

Towards the end of the show, Phil called Birmingham the home of metal due to Black Sabbath, which got massive cheers from the local crowd, before playing big hits ‘Walk’ & ‘Cowboys From Hell’. For their encore they performed ‘Fucking Hostile’ and an extra song ‘Revolution Is My Name’ for the first time on the tour which was an extra treat for us.

Overall it was a great night of metal, with head banging throughout the night along with amazing light effects and good music.

St. Jimmy and Rex 🖤☠️

All rights to the songs in this review are retained by the relevant artists and this site claims no rights over them.

Slackrr – The Grove, Nottingham UK

by St Jimmy 24th Jul 202524th Jul 2025

When we were young – Las Vegas NV USA [Part 2]

by St Jimmy 20th Sep 202430th Nov 2025

Download – From A Different Perspective [Part 3]

by Rex 1st Aug 20241st Aug 2024