By: Kyle Byrd
Date: March 1, 2001
Bands: Pantera, Soulfly, Morbid Angel, and Nothingface (Real Steel Tour)

First up was Nothingface. I love these guys. This is one band that is even better live than they are on cd. Matt Holt is one of the most underrated vocalists in heavy music today. They played mostly songs off of Violence. >From what I remember, they played "Same Solution", "Breathe Out", "Pacifier", "Can't Wait For Violence", "Blue Skin", "Bleeder" and some others. "Bleeder" was the highlight of their set. The pit was really crazy during "Same Solution" though. Their set was short but very sweet. They played for about 20-30 minutes.

Second was Morbid Angel. Now I'm not very into death metal but I do have a few Morbid Angel cd's that I listen to from time to time. I like them. But their live show was kinda weak. All you could hear was the druumming and the occasional guitar solo. You could barley even hear the vocals. The high point of their set was Phil Anslemo (singer for Pantera) coming out and playing the song "Day of Suffering" with them. Since I couldn't hear very well, all I remember them playing was "Day of Suffering" (w/ Phil), "World of Shit", and "God of Emptiness". "Day of Suffering" (w/ Phil) was the highlight of their set. On a side note, during Pantera's set, Phil even apologized for the shitty sound during Morbid Angel's set. It didn't look like many of the fans were into Morbid Angel. Most of the people their went to get something to eat or to take a shit or something. But I stuck around. Since their sound was really shitty, I can't say Morbid Angel are the best live band. They played for about 30 minutes.

Next up was Soulfly. Man did they get the pits going. They came out and kicked the shit out of everyone. Max and the gang sounded great. They kicked off the show with "Back To the Primitive". They played a great set. For the song "Pain", they brought out Nothingface's singer, Matt Holt to sing the song with them. It was sweet. As I said earlier, Matt Holt is an awesome singer. And during "Bumba", they had the drummers from Pantera, Morbid Angel, and Nothingface all come out and play tribal drums with them, which was awesome. Vinnie Paul (Pantera) is an awesome drummer. From what I remember, Soulfly played the intros to "Bleed" and "Jumpdafuckup", "Bring It", "Boom", "Back To The Primitive", "Terrorist", "Quilombo", "Fire", "Pain" w/ Matt Holt, and some others. "Pain" w/ Matt was the highlight of the show. They played for about an hour.

Now the headliners, one of the best bands in the world, Pantera came out. Boy oh boy did they fuck shit up. This is one of the best live bands ever. They started the show with "Hellbound". They had about 70 speakers on each side of the stage and huge 15 foot flames coming out of the sides of the stage. I knew this would be the best show of my life. Phil was all over the place. They brought some guy out that could pop his eyes out of his sockets and Phil said that it would be on the next Pantera home video. Now I'm excited to see if they put that on there. And Dimebag and Phil were throwing beer into the audience. I didn't catch anything though. The last song they played was "Primal Concrete Sledge" which was great. And just as I was walking out, I heard them playing "Cowboys From Hell" and quickly rushed back to my seat to catch the encore performance. It was sweet. They played for about 2 hours amd they played an awesome set consisting of a good mix of songs from all their albums. They played so many songs, I can't even remember half of them. The highlights of their set were "This Love", "Walk", "Hellbound", "Cowboys From Hell", "Revolution Is My Name", "Becoming" and "A New Level".

The Real Steel tour was a great lineup of awesome bands. This was the best concert I've ever seen. Pantera is an awesome live band. Nothingface and Soulfly also blew me away. Morbid Angel is a good band, but they sounded like shit at this concert. But Pantera, Nothingface, and Soulfly were awesome. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give this an 9 because of Morbid Angel's poor sound. If Nothingface, Soulfly, and Pantera weren't as amazing as they were, I'd probably give this show a 7. But they blew me away. Final Score: 9