Buffalo DAMAGEPLAN Fans Stunned By DIMEBAG's Murder A Day After Local Show

Jeff Miers of The Buffalo News reports: When "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott rolled into Buffalo's Icon club Tuesday for a gig with his band, DAMAGEPLAN, the guitarist couldn't have known the show would be his last. Within 24 hours, the legendary musician would be dead, the victim of a crazed fan's deadly assault.

That Abbott's final performance took place in Buffalo only 24 hours prior to his murder is making the senseless act particularly difficult to comprehend for several local musicians and fans of the guitarist's work, both with DAMAGEPLAN and as a founding member of groundbreaking modern metal outfit PANTERA.

"I haven't slept," Joe Carafella of on-the-rise Niagara Falls metal band STEMM, the opening act at the Icon show, said Thursday.

"I grew up with pictures of this guy on my walls. He was a major inspiration to me and to my band," Carafella said. "PANTERA made me become a musician. Opening for these guys was a high point, a dream come true. And they were so cool, so down to earth, so humble at the Icon show.

"A day later, he's dead. I'm completely freaked out."

John Coco of South Buffalo, one of roughly 300 fans at the Icon on Tuesday night, puts it more succinctly.

"This is totally (expletive) up. It makes absolutely no sense."

Tom Kwicien of Backstage Concerts, the promoter of the Icon show, was left reeling from the news of Abbott's murder. For Kwicien, the implications of the tragedy run deep.

"What if this guy (Nathan Gale) had been at our show?" pondered Kwicien. "I mean, what would we have done? We had security, but our security was unarmed. We pat people down at the door for some shows, but not all of them.

"We had no incidents at our show; the crowd absolutely loved it, and the band clearly loved it, too. They all hung out afterward and had a wonderful time, talking to fans and mixing with the crowd. But what freaks me out is just how easily this could happen — anywhere." Read more.