Pantera
Vulgar Video (East/West)
by Paul Lee
It’s primal therapy in video form. For those of you who like visual, this is all you’ve been waiting for. Where most other music vids suck up to sweet ‘n’ sage mainstream America, Pantera‘s vid shatters all notions of taste and madness. Vulgar Video is a throat cutting, ear melting, and brutally (and not to forget hilarious) poignant view into the life of one of the heaviest bands in the cosmos. The funny thing is, in addition to being hard ‘n’ heavy as an aircraft carrier, the guys in Pantera are also a bunch of clowns when their not tearing the craniums off their fans with their sweetly devastating tuneage.
Vulgar Video has the cool videos from Vulgar Display of Power, and they’re worth consuming with your rods ‘n’ cones. There’s “This Love,” “Walk,” and “Mouth For War,” which are fine and respectable and have enough manic metal action to satiate the most ravenous mosher. Yeah, sure, I fully enjoyed the videos, but what really knocked me on my tuckus was the grit and grime that dominated the rest of Vulgar Video.
The really shattering and entertaining aspect was made by the fine fellows in Pantera (and friends and associates) who managed to capture the last two years of their Vulgar tour. They took tons of crazed moments and spliced them all together to form a view of the real Pantera that’s truly tasty and tasteless. Watching VV gives you a better dig of the the no-bullshit excesses behind the Pantera ragged road life. From the looks of things, Pantera live their Cowboys from Hell life to the fullest.
We get to see at least an oil tanker of alcohol get consumed, hotel room doors ripped off their hinges and destroyed, bottle smashing contests in places that probably didn’t want to clean up the mess, and tons of more fun. As Pantera are connoisseurs of cannabis, there are a number of aromatic clips (if you could inhale the sweet smell) of people getting stoney with some pretty massive bones and just general fun and cavorting with reefer. There’s also a number of bare breasts that are happily displayed for the video camera as well as some cruel jokes played on sleeping members of the Pantera entourage. I could go on forever about the nuttiness, and don’t forget the great scene with the Jesus-freaks…
In addition to all the shenanigans, there’s some happening footage done in Russia of Pantera that adds an interesting culture-clash dimension to their lives. “Primal Concrete Sledge” and “Domination” were filmed live at the massive music festival that Pantera opened (with AC/DC and Metallica) in Moscow. We get to see the snot beaten out of lots of fans by Russian cops, the unimaginably shitty hospitality tent, and some gray market dealings There’s also those wild ‘n’ wacky Russian metal fans who seem to be thoroughly obsessed with the music. It’s just interesting to see how alien Russia is and how Pantera deals with it.
Vulgar Video is one of the most awe-inspiring and over-the-fucking-top rock videos on God’s good earth. Even if I wasn’t a mega-colossal Pantera fan and didn’t enjoy getting my skull slammed by the sonic wall that is the inimitable Pantera sound, I’d still be absolutely consumed by the home video tour footage. Don’t ask questions, get your grimy paws on this vid before Phil and company obliterate you whenst next they come to dominate us all.
