Joyful Defiance: Eyehategod and Crowbar Lay Waste to a Sold-Out West Palm Crowd

Longevity in art can't be gamed. If it could, there wouldn't be any such thing as a major label-backed one-hit wonder…or long-running bands such as Eyehategod or Crowbar who showed up Saturday night at Respectable Street with more than seventy years of history between them and laid waste to a sold-out crowd with their respective signature strains of New Orleans sludge metal. And because the night was on some level a not-so-subtle celebration of the triumph of an underground sub-subgenre no careerist or studio executive would ever seek to manufacture in pursuit of whatever constitutes music business success, it was also a joyful and inspirational atmosphere despite the grim tones, dark lyrics, and howled, tortured vocals.
Before the behemoths, however, Miami's Bleeth hit the stage with a pitch-perfect set — think darker shoegaze a la early Catherine Wheel and Swervedriver meets Ted Parsons-era Godflesh meets circa-Temple of the Morning Star Today is the Day meets some Unsane-y chugs. There's maybe a bit of a tropic answer to Kyuss-esque desert doom in the mix, too? In very few other contexts would a metal band that has been killing it for more than a decade be the new kids on the block — you must check out the band's amazing latest full-length Marionette — but on a bill with two bands that kicked off in the '80s, Bleeth definitely felt like torchbearers continuing and evolving a legacy.
"We're having fun," Eyehategod vocalist Mike Williams said midway through the NOLA legend's set. "We like having fun. We have a history of having fun." Indeed, for a band whose best-known jams include songs with titles like "Sisterfucker (Part 1)," "Medicine Noose," "Lack of Almost Everything," and "Kill Your Boss," Eyehategod does seem to be in a very happy, healthy place. (The impromptu jam of a few bars of Black Flag's "Gimme Gimme Gimme" was a fun touch.) And the band is sounding freaking phenomenal these days. Guitarist Jimmy Bower is a national heavy metal treasure churning out grooving homages to/perversions of the Black Sabbath gospel, book of Vol. 4 with the verve and precision of a seasoned artisan — something that felt a little poignant coming so close to the final Sabbath/Ozzy show a few weeks ago. This is less surprising than Williams maintaining his voice and attack, which is somewhat unusual in his extreme metal field, generally speaking, never mind for a guy who has lived as hard and been through as much as he has. (Remember, this is a man who stared death down, waiting for a liver transplant less than a decade ago.) The dialed-in set had a victory lap vibe, yet the serrated edge was never lost.
Yes, Williams continued to smile and dance and call out to the crowd as the rest of the band packed up. Only a few minutes earlier, though, he had paused, bathed in blue light, and with a mischievous semi-snarl said, "We have a few more songs left. They're about killing yourself. Or wanting to kill yourself." Here's hoping Bower, Williams, and co. all live to a hundred and ten. I suspect even the God they hate knows the scene needs this kind of energy and corrective.
Three days before the West Palm performance, Crowbar singer/guitarist Kirk Windstein took to the band's Instagram account to warn fans that he was suffering from "either a really bad sciatica flare-up or potentially a ruptured disc in my lower spine," and that he'd likely be performing seated in a chair. "I don't call in sick," Windstein — who, incidentally, also performs with Bower in the Philip Anselmo-fronted, still active doom supergroup Down — said, brushing away any thought of cancelling the tour.
Instrumentally, the adaptation had no discernible impact as Crowbar tore through a set of rousing classics and cuts from the 2022 how-are-they-still-this-goddamn-good release Zero and Below. Vocals, however, did sound a bit more understandably strained — singing from the diaphragm in a new position was likely a challenge — but a sizeable portion of the crowd put their fists in the air and offered reinforcement in the form of their own voices. In the moment, it felt as if something bigger, more transcendent was happening as tracks like "Conquering," "To Carry the Load," and "All I Had (I Gave)" evolved from mere songs amplified through the Respectable Street PA into actual embodiments of perseverance, will, and defiance.
Crowbar and Eyehategod still walk among us. And that is a very good thing.