The Pantera frontman's other other band hit up the second stage at Download Festival to make everyone's Sunday a whole lot louder.
As Download slowly veers into the home stretch, it’s the welcome return of Louisiana cowboy from Hell under the moniker Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals. The man himself is on hilariously hostile form today, grunting and belching his way through a set peppered with songs pulled from his own catalogue of side projects and the odd Pantera track.
During A New Level, Rex Brown takes to the stage to play bass. This is a no nonsense, no bullshit set that the guys tear through with effortless cool while the audience loses its shit. Anselmo is unapologetic about his old-school attitude, bemoaning the circle pit rule and snarling at the crowd to fuck off and shut up, entirely without malice. “Y’all are young as fuck,” he booms before launching into Death Rattle. “Hopefully your parents raised you right”.
Towards the end, he declares that instead of the planned set, they’re going to “fucking butcher” an Agnostic Front song. Fair enough. And as the set comes to a close, the frontman croons, “aaaand she’s buuuuying the fuckin’ staaairway… to Heavennnnn” and promptly drops the mic. Has anyone ever given less of a fuck than Phil Anselmo, and looked cooler while doing it? Hell no!
