Eyehategod rolls into Miami's Allapattah neighborhood on Thursday, September 17, bringing nearly four decades of New Orleans sludge metal to the dive bar Las Rosas at 8 p.m. The band headlines a bill that includes Whores. and No/Más, with tickets priced at $35.19.
The show wasn't always slated for Las Rosas. According to a Facebook announcement, the concert was originally booked for Respectable Street in West Palm Beach before promoter Heroes Live Entertainment shifted the date to the Miami venue, with previously purchased tickets honored at the new location. Local Miami heavy rock act The Creature Cage was also added to the bill as an opener, joining the national touring support acts, according to details listed on Eventbrite.
As reported by the Miami New Times, frontman Mike IX Williams says the band's audience keeps getting younger, with fans discovering Eyehategod through streaming services, live clips, testimonials and TikTok song playthroughs. Williams told the outlet many of those younger listeners first heard the band through uncles, older brothers and parents, and that he welcomes the new generation finding the music however it reaches them. He also said the band's songs provide catharsis for people going through hard times.
A Venue Built From Displacement
Las Rosas opened in November 2016 in Allapattah as a dive bar and live music venue, created by Cesar Morales and the hospitality group behind Wynwood's Wood Tavern, per the Miami New Times. The bar sits at 2898 NW 7th Ave, according to the same report on the Eyehategod show. Las Rosas has since become a refuge for displaced independent nightlife concepts in Miami, including LGBTQ+ venues pushed out of neighboring Wynwood by commercial real estate development, as Hoodline has previously reported.
Williams described Miami as an interesting and unique city with its own punk and metal scenes, according to the same account, and said he grew up visiting beaches along the East Coast. He was born in North Carolina, per the report.
Survival, Sobriety, and a Near-Death Illness
Eyehategod was founded in New Orleans on April 20, 1988, by guitarist Jimmy Bower and late drummer Joey LaCaze, blending downtuned, Black Sabbath-inspired riffs with raw hardcore punk aggression, according to AllMusic. LaCaze, the band's founding drummer, died in 2013. Following his death and guitarist Brian Patton's departure in July 2018, the band settled into its current four-piece lineup of Williams, Bower, bassist Gary Mader and drummer Aaron Hill, per Wikipedia.
Williams's own survival has been part of the band's story. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he was arrested on state drug charges in Louisiana and jailed before being released on bail that December with help from fellow musicians and supporters, according to Wikipedia. Then in 2016, he suffered a near-death illness caused by cirrhosis and received an emergency liver transplant in December of that year. During his illness, Randy Blythe of Lamb of God and Philip A. Anselmo of Pantera and Down stepped in to perform live with Eyehategod, according to the Miami New Times report. Williams returned to touring just four months after the transplant and has said support from others helped him recover. He also told the outlet the band is now older, wiser, healthier and roughly 80 percent sober as a group.
Discography and the Road Ahead
Eyehategod's catalog includes tracks like “Kill Your Boss,” “Left to Starve,” “Jackass in the Will of God” and “Sisterfucker (Part 1).” The band released its sixth studio album, A History of Nomadic Behavior, through Century Media Records on March 12, 2021, per the album's Wikipedia entry. The band didn't stop touring except during COVID, returning to the road by the end of 2021.
Support act Whores. is listed on the bill.
The Miami stop comes weeks ahead of another major date for the band: Eyehategod is slated to perform at The Great NOLA Trendkill, a two-day festival at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans in November, alongside Pantera, Down, Crowbar and Corrosion of Conformity, Hoodline has reported. Nearly four decades in, the band that has often been misunderstood remains, by its own account, true to itself.
