A Love Letter to Crowbar
It’s May 1st, 2023. I’m living alone in a hotel room and I’m completely unprepared for my finals I have the next day. I have my algebra final at 8:00 a.m. and my chemistry final at 2:00 p.m.. I’m sitting in my room getting ready to go to a $20 a ticket concert down the road in Ybor City. A girl I’d never met before was on the way to my place.
Jules and I met two years ago now, on that day. We had been instagram mutuals for a long time because we had each went to a high school in our town. We had never met because we didn’t go there at the same time. At some point, maybe a month before this day, Jules slid up on my instagram story and said something along the lines of, “you’re so cool, lets be friends,” and I said something along the lines of, “omg yes.”
I had two tickets to see a band that I really loved, Sunroom. I had seen on TikTok that they were coming to Tampa on their tour, and the tickets were cheap, so I bought two. When May came, I didn’t have anyone to go with me. My friends from home were also at college, and my college friends had finals to study for. I did too, of course, but I have priorities. So, a few days beforehand, I messaged this girl that I had been Snapchatting back and forth, and I asked her if she would be down to drive up to Tampa and come to the show with me. I have an extra bed, she didn’t have to worry about driving back late, I could show her around my school. It was a slightly crazy idea, but luckily she went for it. So on May 1st, 2023, Jules drove up to Tampa. We drove over to Ybor, parked in the lot behind the Indian restaurant, and walked over to Crowbar for the first time.
Crowbar is a locally owned small music venue that we like to call our favorite dive bar. Its covered in old show posters, stickers, drawings, paintings, the occasionally sticky floor, and it’s filled to the brim every night with people that just love music. It’s our favorite place to go.
That night, we went to see Sunroom together, and it was the start of a beautiful, beautiful friendship. I got to introduce her to a cool band I found on TikTok, and we got to experience the world of local music for the first time together. A band from Orlando was the opener, and they’ve been our favorite ever since. Crowbar is "our thing.” It’s what we do. If I’m going, I’m not going without Jules. We have “Crowbar nights” as often as we can. Within those walls, we’ve discovered music that means the most to us. We’ve found countless bands from our state that we support as often as we can. We’ve made so many friends that we wouldn’t have made if we didn’t walk through the glass door that night.
It’s our place, our safe place, our fun place. We’ve brought our friends there, and we’ve made friends there. A sacred place to us, we credit our friendship to that place. It brought us together, it brought us friends, it brought us music. We’ve got signatures, set lists, tee shirts, stickers, posters, whatever we can get our hands on. Without that little hole-in-the-wall music venue, we wouldn’t have Gabby and Evie and Luna. We wouldn’t have Summer Hoop or Sunroom or Peace Cult or 0 Miles Per Hour or so many more artists and bands. We wouldn’t have after concert McDonald’s rituals. I mean, I wouldn’t have the tattoo that I got impulsively on one of our Crowbar nights. Jules wouldn’t have her septum pierced. Without our favorite dive bar, our friendship would be completely different.
Music ignites and inspires and moves and creates and feels, but without the places to play it, where are you going to hear it? Without Crowbar, we wouldn’t know the countless albums, songs, and artists that we do. Crowbar is an integral part of our lives. It brought me one of my best friends. It means everything to me.
xoxo, Willianny
