Pantera bassist Rex Brown recently opened up about his band’s extensive run as the support act for Metallica on the ‘M72’ tour, sharing his thoughts in a conversation on The Bass Nerds podcast.
Brown reflected on what it’s meant to be part of the tour for such an extended stretch of time, as well as the unique challenges of performing on the tour’s distinctive stage setup.
“The ‘M72’ tour is just an honor to be on for a whole three and a half years now,” Brown said. “And those guys are just the tops.”
He went on to describe the logistics of playing on the tour’s unconventional stage layout.
“The stage is a weird configuration, but once you just get up and start playing, it just comes naturally,” Brown continued. “You just have a lot of people to cover… It’s like a doughnut in the middle of a stadium.”
Brown also recalled some of the massive venues Pantera has played during the tour and the scale of the crowds Metallica draws.
“So we were playing — I think the first run we were doing, we did MetLife in New York, and we did SoFi in L.A., and Soldier Field — so many places you just dream of playing,” he said. “And they were all sold to the gills. Metallica’s huge, man.”
Pantera’s involvement with the ‘M72’ tour has spanned multiple legs and continents, giving Brown plenty of ground to draw on for his reflections.
Pantera joined Metallica as a special guest on select dates of the tour’s 2026 European and UK stadium leg, appearing alongside Avatar in cities including Frankfurt, Budapest, Dublin and London. Metallica’s broader European run also featured Gojira and Knocked Loose rotating in on alternate nights, making for one of the heaviest support lineups the tour has assembled.
The current version of Pantera features Brown and vocalist Phil Anselmo alongside Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante. Wylde and Benante stepped into the roles left by the late Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul when the band returned to the stage in 2022. That lineup has remained intact throughout Pantera’s stretch on the ‘M72’ bill.
Metallica’s ‘M72′ tour itself has been a marathon effort. It kicked off in Amsterdam in 2023 and ran across eight legs before wrapping up in London in July 2026. Along the way, the tour set attendance records at stops including Athens’ Olympic Stadium and Glasgow’s Hampden Park, where more than 58,000 fans turned out.
Brown’s comments underscore just how significant a chapter the ‘M72’ tour has been for Pantera. The tour has offered the band a platform in front of some of the largest crowds of its career.
