LimeWire Music Blog

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the murder of Pantera/Damageplan Plan guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. A moment of silence, please.

Influenced by Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Ace Frehley, and Tony Iommi, Darrell and his drummer brother, Vinnie Paul, rose from obscurity in Arlington, Texas, and went on to make global metal history with Pantera in the ’90s. Onstage, Darrell was charismatic, played the crunchiest, heaviest riffs and could make his axe squeal like nobody’s business. Fans loved him for his talent and his heart that was as big as the Lone Star state. Darrell was an everyman: he liked to drink, smoke weed, raise hell and liked to dye his beard. He wasn’t a hipster and could give a damn about fashion or trends. His favorite drink was a black tooth grin—a mix of Seagram’s whiskey, a shot of Crown Royal whiskey and a splash of Coca-Cola. He drank a lot of them in his short life.

While performing with Damageplan (the band he co-formed after the demise of Pantera) at Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, Darrell was fatally shot five times at point-blank range by a crazed fan, Nathan Gale. After killing a concertgoer, security guard and club employee, Gale (who reportedly had 35 additional rounds of ammunition) took a hostage during the rampage and was eventually killed by a heroic police officer, James D. Niggemeyer. In the blink of an eye, one of rock’s greatest guitarists was silenced forever. Like many of his guitar peers whose lives ended way too soon, “Dimebag” Darrell left behind a body of work that has already influenced another generation of guitarists. But there will always be the question about what could’ve been….

“I think Dimebag was a huge influence to a lot of players and still is today,” Mudvayne’s Greg Tribbett told LWMB. “His crushing riffs to his soulful solos cannot be touched. Long live Dimebag!”

I recently got my hands on Dimevision: That’s How I Have Fun, a self-released DVD from Vinnie Paul. “In my humble opinion,” wrote Vinnie Paul on the liner notes, “Dime was, is and will always be metal’s Walt Disney—a dude dedicated to bringing joy into other people’s lives.” He has a point. As for the DVD itself, well, it’s messy (that’s a compliment) and doesn’t try to document the guitarist’s life in any formal way. Instead, it’s comprised mostly of home video footage in the realm of Jackass. Segments feature Darrell waking up his drunken house guests by putting fireworks (he seemed to be obsessed with ‘em) in their beds, and the guitarist laughing his ass off while a friend drove his monster pickup truck back-and-forth over his front lawn. There’s also an interesting self-filmed monologue, where a shirtless Darrell shares his personal feelings about his music. Though some of the live footage is a little repetitive, watching a young, skinny Dimebag perform—and sing!—a note-for-note cover of Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy” with an early version of Pantera in front of maybe 20 people at an empty club is terrifyingly impressive.

I never met “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, but after watching this DVD, I sure wish I had gotten the pleasure.

image via MySpace