Concert Review: Crowbar at Super Rad Arcade Bar 2026
Crowbar are a band that I’ve been trying to see for years now. Sure, they tour like they’ll drop dead if they don’t, but somehow something has come up every single time. Fortunately, the curse was broken and I finally got my chance to witness their heaviness live.
Super Rad Arcade Bar is about the closest thing I have to a local venue. I’m fairly used to driving two hours or more for shows, so comparatively speaking, this was right in my backyard. I went with a buddy of mine, for whom Crowbar was his first metal show. We played some janky zombie shooter game during the openers, which isn’t something I’d normally do, but the graphics and gameplay looked so bad that I just had to give it a shot.
After the openers were done, we headed down into the basement. With every step down the staircase, I could feel it getting hotter. It was a sold out show and folks were packed in pretty tight. There were people posted up on top of some gear shelves in the back of the room. Every bit of space that could be filled with bodies had bodies in it. Lotta 98.6 going on in there. My friend and I both got pretty sweaty just in the time that it took Crowbar to get set up.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Kirk’s way of introducing the band. At this show and during every live performance I’ve watched online, he approaches the mic and proudly declares “WE ARE CROWBAR FROM NEW ORLEANS, AND WE’RE GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!!”After opening with “…And Suffer As One,” the crowd went nuts. I’m talking crowd-surfers, some serious moshing, people jumping up and down, and then there was one guy who climbed up one of the wooden support pillars and jumped off into the crowd. People got excited for a lot of the songs during Crowbar’s set, but I think the crowd got the most hype for “To Build A Mountain,” “Planets Collide,” and perhaps most of all, “Repulsive In Its Splendid Beauty,” which is one of my absolute favorites. Even in my spot near the back, I could physically feel the crowd singing along for a solid majority of the set. A personal highlight for me was the band playing “The Cemetery Angels,” which has got to be a top three Crowbar song for me.
After closing with “All I Had (I Gave),” which is probably my favorite Crowbar track, Kirk took a few pictures with fans and headed back to the band’s tour bus. I spoke to his wife Robin at the merch table when I bought a shirt afterwards and she told me he was feeling a little under the weather, which surprised me given that he sounded fantastic. She noticed that I had some albums in hand and offered to take them to Kirk and have him sign them. I said that I would love that, but only if she was positive that Kirk wouldn’t mind. Not much later, she came back with all 7 of the albums signed. Kirk, Robin, if you’re reading this, thanks a million.
I know that Crowbar has sort of blown up over the last year—a lot of that comes from TikTok if I’ve heard correctly—but I wasn’t expecting the crowd to be so overwhelmingly young. I’d say I was older than most of the crowd, and I’m 25. Getting into metal was a serious turning point in my life and has brought me so much joy and so many fond memories, so I’m really glad that folks my age and younger are discovering and connecting with this kind of music. Hopefully it’s able to bring them the kind of experiences that it has brought me.
