Formed in 1981, Pantera took the metal scene by storm until their hiatus in 2003. Two decades later, Pantera, AKA the ‘Cowboys from Hell’, are back with a powerful lighting design—and a lot of pyrotechnics—from longtime Lighting Designer Sonny Satterfield. Touring this summer with another metal powerhouse Lamb of God, designed by Bryan Hartley, Pantera proved it had not lost a step. Satterfield and Hartley filled PLSN in on working together on the tour. Production Manager, Eric “Shakes” Grzybowski also joins the conversation as they all tell PLSN about touring with these legendary metal acts.
Satterfield started with Pantera in 1987 and stayed with them until they stop 16 years later. “I’ve been with the band for a long time,” he says. “We took a hiatus, for about 20 years. Then we came back, and this was an amazing experience, especially with Bryan and everybody involved. Bryan had a big input programming with me. I kept the elements I did in the old days. Obviously, back then I used PAR cans, ACLs, strobe lights, and fog machines; now we evolved from there. I tried to keep that same style; I didn’t change the songs much. I went back and reviewed old shows; I couldn’t remember everything. I looked on YouTube and even dug out old VHS tapes from the attic! Whatever things I could find to look at, to keep the same concept. I tried to keep it consistent throughout the years. I didn’t change it much.”
Replacing the Old with the New
About looking for alternatives for older gear, something to give a similar look, Satterfield explains some of those choices. For an ACL replacement he went with a Robe MegaPointe, “Because you can fan them,” he says. “Bryan is amazing; I learned from him back in the old days. He had a lot of cool shows with ACLs. We did a Megadeth tour back in the 90s and his entire rig was ACLs! For strobes, I used to use the square Diversitronics strobes. Now, I really like the [CHAUVET Color] STRIKE Ms. They’re a great strobe light, but it can be a little difficult to clone. I used to run strobes in patterns and probably had as many strobe lights back in the day as I did other instruments.”
Hartley was the Lighting Designer for Lamb of God, who would be touring with Pantera, so his longtime friend Satterfield asked him to program the shows in Europe with him. “Sonny started on a grandMA2, but I’m big on the MA3 platform and software, so we switched to MA3,” explains Hartley. “Once he found out I was with Lamb of God and touring together, he asked me to program his show. The programming part was easy. Sonny came to my house for a whole week, and we programmed Pantera; whatever Sonny wanted. He wanted red and blue to jump around and all that kind of stuff. He would then run it to the music in previz. We programmed with the Depence 3 visualizer. We went to Europe, Lamb of God wasn’t on that part, so he asked me if I would go as his front of house guy. I don’t really do that, but for Sonny I said, ‘let’s do it’. We did, and it was amazing. We had to go through all these festivals and each one is just a little different than your normal touring routine is, so you have to go in and adapt to it. Sometimes, you only have minutes to get it together. But man, it was awesome!”
Cowboys From Hell
Differences between the two acts include the imagery and props that Pantera uses in its shows. A lot of that comes from input from Pantera’s Phil Anselmo and his wife Kate Richardson. “Kate’s our manager and is involved as is Philip and Rex Brown. Back in the old days, the two deceased members of the band were involved too. We all did it together, we were kids growing up doing this, and figuring it out. Philip likes visual things; we use weed leaf gobos in the show. We used a lot more in the old days, which we’ll probably bring back on the next tour. Kate is very creative and artistic. She deals with the content creation, and she created the snake signs we have; they’re unique. They have LEDs in them and say ‘CFH’, which means Cowboys From Hell, and they can raise and lower with hydraulics. That’s what the band’s been known for their entire career. I can change colors with them, and I use them in every song just about, because I think they’re cool looking. As simple as it is, the signs are cool little things she came up with. Gallagher built the four of them.”
Vendor Support
Gemini Light Sound & Video out of Dallas was the lighting vendor for the tour. “I’ve been with Gemini for 30 years now and have grown up with Jason [Cain] and worked a lot for his father, Terry at that shop,” says Satterfield. “They’re definitely my vendor of choice and they’ve done a lot for me, and for my tours. We had a programmer from Iceland, Tony Kroyer, and Gemini got his visa sorted for the tour. They had custom carts built by Matt Panther at Reliable Design for this tour.”
Video equipment and crew for the tour is from Nighthawk Video and Satterfield was very happy with their support. “They have killer equipment, and their guys are really efficient in terms of getting it all up,” states Satterfield. “[Video Director] John McLeish is great. He and I do some cool things together. He learned the songs with me in rehearsals because he didn’t know the music. He basically followed my lead. If I strobe something, he’ll strobe something. If I’m in red, he goes to red and amber. If I am in no color, he’ll do the same. He’s good at contrasting the video content to lighting. Put it this way, I never want a green backdrop with red lights on. It’s not Christmas.” Hartley chimes in, “It’s not TSO, either!”
Satterfield continues, “We have one melodic ballad called “This Love”. John does this beautiful purple swirly background video, and it contrasts my lights perfectly. He’s good at coming up with good ideas and working with the content that comes from Kate and her content person. Then we collaborate and make sure that it fits the color scheme of the lights.”
Gallagher Staging & Productions in Nashville built the signs and scenic elements for this tour. Satterfield comments that “They’re just great and build everything like a Sherman tank! You are not going to destroy those signs. Those things have been around the world. They’re just made of wood with some LED tape. They never caused a bit of problems and never needed a paint touch up.”
In terms of support for the tour’s pyrotechnics and special effects, the crew and gear are from Image SFX. “Bryan and Shakes have had a long experience with Doug Adams and Image SFX; they were totally great,” comments Satterfield. “The original shooter, Tom—he and I go way back on different shows. The Pyro Crew Chief, Dianne [Fleming] has taken over and she works closely with me on the tunes and choreography of the pyro. She refers to me for timing and for the overall look we want. We work well as a team and the pyro is outstanding! I wish we could do more.”
The Design
When it comes to the overall design, Satterfield wanted to keep it simple. “The design is pretty basic,” says Satterfield, we’re just using three straight trusses. Bryan and I kept it that way. We had thought about doing something crazier, but since was the first time back, we decided to keep it simple. Bryan’s known for being one of the best designers in the business when it comes to big looks. He creates truss looks and configurations that just blow my mind. My mind doesn’t work like that. He paints all these pictures with truss that have crazy bends and twists.”
New to the Pantera family was Eric “Shakes” Grzybowski who served as Production Manager. He goes way back with both Satterfield and Hartley. “We love Shakes dearly,” says Hartley. “I’ve known Shakes for probably 30 years; he did so many different things with KISS. He was a carpenter, then pyro, and then Production Manager. I love Shakes to death, man, and it’s been so awesome to work with these guys for these past few months.” Satterfield as well had worked with Shakes. “Yes, he’s new to Pantera, but he’s not a new face to me. I’ve known him for years through my good friend Brad Tegan, who’s the LD for Kid Rock. I’ve now finally got the pleasure of working with him. And like Bryan said, I absolutely love him. He’s a hands-on, no-nonsense production manager. He’s like Opie [PM Dale “Opie” Skjerseth], who I spent many years with. Shakes is a real straightforward, blue collar, from Detroit, hardworking guy. I love a good work ethic and I think everybody should get their hands dirty. And he does. I mean, he’s there from the tip top of the morning to the very end of the day, pushing boxes, sweating. You can’t ask for a better guy.”
It’s obvious that these two designers go way back and are each other’s biggest cheerleaders as well as the best of friends. What could be better than touring with friends? “I would just say about this tour, you’ve got a couple of two old lighting designers, two old best of friends that took a pretty simple lighting rig and made it look pretty cool,” concludes Satterfield. “I’m proud of it. And I think that any lighting designer, whether they do big artists or whether they just light in a club, they could come and see the show and I think they would enjoy two guys that have been doing this their whole lives and took something pretty simplistic and made it look pretty cool.” Hartley is justifiably proud of the end results as well. “Right on. We’ve had a blast on this tour and I’m sorry that the Lamb of God and Pantera tour has come to an end, but it’s been a blast and I’ve enjoyed it so much. And Shakes, too. I’ve known him for so long and it really was the three of us. We’d go out for some good dinners, which I’ve enjoyed a lot. So, thank you, buddy. Sonny, I love you to death. You know that.” Satterfield replies, “Likewise, buddy!”
Lamb of God
Hartley’s design for Lamb of God shared the overhead rig and some of the fog machines with Satterfield’s Pantera design. The floor packages for the two acts were the big differentiators, as well as how they programmed the two shows differently. “It’s about the same as Sonny’s, where we had a basic rig; it’s just in how I program the songs for my set, which determines how good it is,” says Hartley. “It’s like a guitar. Anybody can have access to a guitar. It’s just kind of how you play it. So, that’s how I look at our lighting rig that we’ve got. I have a full floor package, and Sonny has an amazing floor package as well. Gemini, my vendor as well, supplied a nice little floor package; they’re awesome. I basically used the same stuff that’s in the rig—the CHAUVET Color STRIKE Force Ms, some SGM P7s and I’ve got some Claypaky Sharpys.”
Hartley discusses how they maintained a design separation between the two shows. “I use the STRIKE Force Ms a little differently than Sonny does,” says Hartley. “There’s a little bit of a difference in everything, even though it’s not really that much difference, because Sonny and I like the same things. We’ve designed and programmed all these different shows all this time. There are some similarities to it, but that’s just because that’s just how we do lights, and how we run lights. With Lamb of God, I try to be intense and in your face. Also, I’m lucky in a way because I don’t have to worry about lighting the band from the front; they like to be in silhouette. They’re one of those bands where I don’t use any spotlights; that’s another thing that sets Pantera and Lamb of God apart. Then Sonny’s got all the video going on.”
The other element that Satterfield and Hartley shared was working with Lighting Programmer, Anton “Tony” Kroyer Jr. They were both taken with this young person’s work ethic on this tour. “I want to acknowledge, and give credit, to our programmer, Tony from Iceland,” says Satterfield. “He’s a 23-year old young man. Talk about young, Bryan’s got a kid older, I’ve got a kid the same age. He’s amazing, man. He’s very talented and super smart. He’ll be out working away on the console, and I repeatedly remind him to take a break. He’ll just sit out there all day and play around with stuff and practice. He’s a very key player in this too, as far as taking care of us outside of our day-to-day things, he’s definitely there. He helps me update the focuses. I hope he’s learning things outside the box of programming. He’s also a great crew guy too. What a talented young man he is. Bryan can attest to this.” Hartley adds, “Tony’s awesome. We pepper him with questions, but he loves to sit out there and tinker with the desk. Tony’s awesome.”
Kyle Connor is the Production Manager for Lamb of God, working with Hartley on this tour. “Kyle’s awesome,” states Hartley. “Compared to me, he’s a younger guy. So, it’s crazy working with some of these people that are much younger than you. Kyle’s great. He’s been with Lamb of God for a few years; I love working with him. Brian Griffin, our Tour Manager, he’s quite the character as I’ve gotten to know all the guys with Lamb of God, and the band is great. So, it’s a nice little place to be—and a great group to work with. I look forward to doing more with them.”
Production Management
New to the Pantera family, Eric “Shakes” Grzybowski has been the Production Manager for Pantera for a little over a year “I started, last August, building production and getting the team together,” he says. “We went full tilt in October. We had a heavy hitting staff on this one. Sonny is the Designer and Lighting Director, but he needed a programmer on the road to deal with all the festivals in Europe, so we brought in Bryan Hartley who would be touring with Lamb of God. Then, during the time in Europe we added a kid named Anton who’s from Iceland. He was part of the Victory Lights staff on the European leg. He’s very knowledgeable.”
Shakes talks about the overall design and how they arrived at what they toured. “It was a culmination of a couple of things. There were some different designs submitted that were presented to Sonny and then onto the band. The band did not dig the direction of what was presented. They understood that there was a lot of new technology since the last time Pantera toured, but they wanted something like they had in the old days. They didn’t like a lot of the flash and trash and felt they didn’t need it, but they did want some updates. That being said, Sonny, the band, especially Rex Brown, were a big part of it. The band and I put our heads together and put two and two together and went old school/ new school. Then we had the finishing touches with Bryan and Sonny and made it 2023/24 Pantera.”
Sonny and Bryan have a long history—both together and separately—in designing and touring heavy metal acts. They brought their experience and talents to bear for Pantera. “I’d say that Sonny and Bryan—along with Michael Keller—are the godfathers of heavy metal lighting. Sonny was doing all the big heavy metal bands back in the day and was a legend. Obviously, he was Pantera’s lighting guy. Bryan has a legendary status with different bands—TSO, KISS, and Megadeth. It would be hard to get a better team right off the bat. I mean, two legends involved at the same time, on the same project—that are there day-in and day-out; it was fantastic!” For Shakes, it’s all about the team that he put together for this tour. “We have a team; that’s what it’s all about, Team Pantera. We’re Crew From Hell 2.0. We manage to rise to the top, just like cream. We adapt and overcome.”
Gemini Light Sound & Video has been associated with Pantera for years and was a no-brainer for them to support this tour. “I’ve worked with Jason Cain and Gemini for a long time,” says Shakes. “I’ve done a lot of different things with them. They were already speaking with the team when I came on board. Like most shows, it was ever evolving and changing. Terry Cain gave us an open slate to whatever Sonny wanted. It was crazy because we got everything we wanted, including some things they didn’t have like a new VL that they went out and bought. The support has been great.”
Another long-term relationship for Shakes was with Nighthawk Video, who he’s worked with for a long time. “They’re fantastic,” he says. “They are one of my favorites to work with; Todd and Bob over at Nighthawk are just great. Obviously, our relationship goes way back. We’re not running anything super complicated on this one. But they were able to make things happen for us when we needed to shift things around, get the personnel we wanted, get the gear we wanted, and have support around the world—Japan, Europe, and everything else. So, we were appreciative for sure.”
Image SFX was the special effects provider for the tour, and both Shakes and Hartley have had a long working relationship with Image SFX’s Doug Adams. “We go back a long way with Doug,” says Shakes. “He and the team at Image are visionaries with their staff and engineering team. We knew exactly what we were planning on with the flames, going with standard Salamanders, but I wanted to incorporate some colors. So, instead of customizing all the machines we’ve got one that can give us a red flame look and then have some standard Salamanders. We built a new fire sign; that was done between Tye Trussell and his staff at Gallagher Nashville and Doug, Phil, and the engineering guys at Image. It’s well-engineered and heavy like a tank. It’s 30’ wide by 12’ tall and weighs around 5,000 lbs. with all the gear in it.”
All the set pieces, custom drum riser, props, pyro decks, etc. were built by Gallagher Staging & Productions. “Tye [Trussell] and I used to tour together a long time ago. Myself, Tye, and Rex Brown, the bass player designed the backline and the snakes, which are the four LED signs of the CFH logo. They’ve been great to work with as well. They helped sort us out and making sure at the beginning if we needed help, they helped us get going to do what we do.”
For Shakes, he takes a lot of pride in the team he built for Crew From Hell 2.0. “It was all in assembling the team from some old school Pantera guys to now new people that have never toured with Pantera, including myself. We’ve got a great, close-knit team here. Production-wise we have a great team put together here; they kept it rolling and rolling.”
VENDOR VIEW
Gallagher Staging
Tye Trussell
“We provided two full set looks with custom amp cart walls and the drum riser as well as four internally lit CFH logo signs. There were also custom printed carpets, custom printed kabuki drop, a 30’ flying steel logo sign plumbed for pyrotechnics, and one badass gigantic Pantera lit sign. We worked closely with Image SFX, the pyro company, to make sure that the Pantera logo sign was built in such a way that all the effects would be able to travel well, fit together properly and not cause any unforeseen issues.
I worked closely with Rex, Philip, and Kate, as well as the rest of the band and management, to get the designs exactly like they wanted for this tour. There was a lot of feedback and input from the artist’s side to make sure they got what they needed to create the look and feel of their show. This is something we do very well at Gallagher, we provide service to our clients on a close personal level to ensure that we give them what they want and expect at a price point within their budget.”
Gemini Light Sound & Video
Jason Cain
“We have had a long relationship with Sonny, who used to work at Gemini, and Sonny goes back to the earliest days of Pantera. He’s like the fifth Beatle. It is always great to work with him and with Pantera. For the lighting on this we provided a lot of Robe MegaPointes and BeamWashes, as well as some Martin Viper Profiles, CHAUVET Color STRIKE M strobes, VL 5LED, GLP X4 Bar 20s. It is always great to be able to bring Sonny in and show him what’s new and different. He lives close to the shop; he can just come over and him try out different gear to get some ideas.
This show also uses a lot of smoke and haze— High End Systems’ HQ-100 Hazer and FQ-100 Performance Fog Generator, and a Javelin CO2 Fog Machine from Elation/Magmatic. What was cool was that Sonny put the Javelin machine up on the truss and had the smoke come down from the top, which worked well with all the flame/pyro and really highlighted the beams. It’s a vertical unit with colored LEDs to color the smoke which traditionally are on the floor shooting up.
It’s a killer show, I mean Sonny and Bryan Hartley together; they are both super badass. The amount of killer work that each of them has done over the years, it’s incredible. We are very happy to support these two amazing designers at Gemini. They have produced a really great, big looking show that really has to be seen. And how crazy is it that Sonny is the only guy to have ever lit Pantera? That is so cool.”
Image SFX
Doug Adams
“Image SFX supplied the custom propane bars shaped to trace the Pantera lettering within the 30’ steel frame sign, along with eight Luminous arena heads mounted vertically shooting towards each other and eight CO2 Cryo Jets mounted vertically within the flame sign. There were also 14 Salamander Quad Pros with red and natural gas, and 14 Sonic Booms. We built the flame mechanism and control for the Pantera flame sign with the assistance of Tye Trussell and Rock from Gallagher Staging who did an incredible job with that massive steel sign. That flame sign is able to be manually detonated or can be synced to timecode. It’s very responsive and versatile with various sequences and can individually trace each letter in fire or in any combination of scripting fire.
I looked at the original Pantera sign from years back and thought it was pretty cool then. I never thought I’d get a chance to create a new flame sign with current technology. When I saw the original sign, it was a couple of long flame bars mounted along the bottom of the 10’ steel cut sign that are either on or off, nothing proportional and it didn’t trace the letters. Shakes brought us in originally and told me ‘Doug it’s got to looks similar to the original but bigger and better.’ We pretty much had carte blanche from there on. I did the design for the flame sign with Nick Hock and Phil Payne and figured out how to integrate the various flame looks to mesh with the rest of the set and show design provided by Sonny.
It was great working with Shakes and Sonny in New Orleans during rehearsals getting the show together. Scott McGhee was there every day with full support. The entire Pantera camp, including the band, was easy to work with and everyone was so passionate about the integrity of what Pantera is. I also have to give much appreciation and credit to the ImageSFX team on tour and behind the scenes. Originally, I started this with Tom Brewer as shooter, who’s been a long time Kid Rock shooter and friend of mine. Tom was a big part of getting the programming and rehearsals to touring up till he was called back to Kid Rock. Dianne Flemming, his wife, was already out on tour as an SFX Tech with us. Dianne is a seasoned shooter and knows the show cues well, so it was an easy transition for Dianne to become the lead shooter of the tour. We have a great crew on tour.”
Nighthawk Video
Todd LePere
“We were contacted by Shakes back in 2022 to be involved in this tour. With all the new gear we recently invested in, we were able to put together a more compact video package which helped them get around the world and through their international festivals start easily. This also allowed us to support their evolving design better with video solutions that could easily scale. That way when we got to the US headlining tour this July, we were able to incorporate our new Saco A12-12mm LED and our new custom broadcast camera system to make this the best-looking show possible.
It’s an honor to get to work with such a legendary band. All of us at Nighthawk are proud to be included in the Pantera family and know that we were part of helping to make this a special show for everyone.”
PRODUCTION TEAM
PANTERA
- Tour Manager: Meg MacRae
- Production Manager: Eric Grzybowski
- Lighting Designer/Director: Sonny Satterfield
- Lighting Programmers: Bryan Hartley, Anton Kroyer Jr.
- Lighting Crew Chief: Kyle Cottrell
- Lighting Techs: Jasio Sanchez, Josh Jenkins
- Video Director/Video Crew Chief: John McLeish
- Video Engineer/ Camera Shader: Tony Doucet
- Lead LED/ Camera Operator: John Dolderer
- LED Assist/ Camera Operator: Austin Colby
- Pyro Crew Chief/Shooter: Dianne Fleming
- Flame Techs: Andy May, Paul Cusato
- Rigger: Steve Sizemore
- Carpenters: Robbie Lewis, Danny Spratt
- Production Coordinator: Erin O`Rourke
- Stage Manager: Scott Wienclaw
LAMB OF GOD
- Tour Manager/FOH: Brian Griffin
- Production Manager: Kyle Connors
- Lighting Designer/Director: Bryan Hartley
- Lighting Tech: Andrew Kress
- Pyro Tech: Rory Jones
VENDORS
- Lighting: Gemini Lights, Sound & Video/Jason Cain
- Video: Nighthawk Video/Todd LePere
- Scenic: Gallagher Staging & Productions/Tye Trussell
- Special Effects: Image SFX/Doug Adams
GEAR
Lighting: Pantera
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA3 light
- 4 MA Lighting grandMA3 NPU
- TMB ProPlex Switch
- Fleenor Opto-Isolator
- 24 CHAUVET Color STRIKE M Strobe
- 30 Robe BMFL WashBeam
- 34 Robe MegaPointe
- 24 Martin MAC Viper AirFX
- 40 Elation Cue Pix Blinder WW2
- 14 SGM Q7 LED Panel/Strobe
- 24 GLP impression X4 Bar 20
- 16 Vari-Lite VL5 LED Wash
- 4 High End Systems HQ-100 Hazer
- 4 High End Systems FQ-100 Fog Generator
- 10 Magmatic Javelin Fog Machine
- 2 Gemini 48 Cir. 120/208V Distro
- 24 Chain Master Hoist, 1-Ton
- 4 Reliable Design Custom Lighting Carts/Set Pieces
Lighting: Lamb of God
- 2 MA Lighting grandMA3 light
- 2 Martin MAC Viper Profile
- 10 High End Systems Solapix 7
- 12 Claypaky Sharpy
- 4 Elation Arena PAR Zoom
- 12 CHAUVET Color STRIKE M Strobe
- 4 GLP impression X4 Bar 20
- 20 SGM Q7 LED Wash/Strobe
- 2 Reel EFX DF-50 Hazer
- 2 RE Fan
- 1 Gemini 36 Cir. 120/208V Distro
Video
- Saco A12-12mm LED Video Panels
- Nighthawk Custom Broadcast Camera System
Scenic
- Pantera Fire Sign
- CFH Snake Signs
- Grated Steps
- Logo Kabuki
Special Effects
- 1 Custom 30’ Pantera Sign w/Custom Propane Bars
- 8 Luminous Arena Head
- 8 CO2 Cryo Jets
- 14 Salamander Quad Pro
- 14 Sonic Booms
