On Dec. 8, 2004, Pantera and Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott was tragically murdered on stage at The Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio. Dimebag and three other people were killed by a 25-year-old ex-Marine, Nathan Gale, who charged the stage and opened fire on Damageplan and the audience before being killed himself by police officer James D. Niggemeyer.
Dimebag’s influence is evident in scores of hard rock and heavy metal bands, and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl paid tribute to the late guitarist during the band’s May 1 concert in Dallas. Before the band launched into “My Hero,” Grohl told the crowd: “Actually, you know what? Since we’re here in Dallas, I’m gonna dedicate this one to an old friend who lived around here. His name was ‘Dimebag’ Darrell. How about that? Let’s hear it for Darrell. It’s called ‘My Hero’. We’re gonna sing it together, right?”
Grohl previously credited Pantera for inspiring Foo Fighters’ “open-door policy” when making their “Concrete And Gold” album.
“Basically, the way the Foo Fighters work, we get along with everybody,” Grohl told Planet Rock in 2017. “For years, we’ve always been that band, when we get backstage at a festival, the first thing I do is I pick up a bottle of whiskey and I just walk around banging on dressing-room doors to see who’s fun, to see who’s cool. It could be Tricky, or it could be Muse or it could be… whatever — I just look for pals.”
Grohl continued: “Actually, that’s something I learnt from Pantera. Back in the day, we did a show with Pantera, and we became friends and I would go see them on tour all the time. And I realized that you’d be backstage at a Pantera show and there’d be, like, Marilyn Manson is in that corner, and Kato Kaelin is in that corner, and Britney Spears is in that corner… Everybody loved to hang with Pantera. So, to me, that was the coolest thing about them — they were the sweetest people and they had this open-door policy.”
Video of Grohl’s dedication to Dimebag can be viewed below.
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