Long Before They Were Cowboys From Hell: The Time Pantera Played My Prom
When Dimebag Was Diamond and We Were All Young
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when you could still find 8-track tape players in cars, the Internet was science-fiction, and Marvel was only doing comics I experienced one of those moments you don’t recognize at the time but that ultimately stay with you your whole life. To be exact it was early 1983, I was a junior in high school, and for some unknown reason was part of our class activities committee. This meant we planned the dances, which seems stupid now but was big deal then.
For our Sweetheart Dance that February (apparently Catholic schools don’t like the word Valentine’s, perhaps offended at the co-opting of yet another Saint’s day) we decided to forgo the usual DJ and actually find a live band. Unfortunately, we were all 16 and 17 years old and had no clue how to do this in those days before the Internet made everything simple. It really was harder to get things done back then than anyone under 30 will ever realize.
By a serendipitous stroke of luck, one of our classmates (a stoner skater before it was cool named Gerry) just happened to be the only roadie for a local band. He said they would do the gig for next to nothing, which was what we could afford; he set a time for…
