Guide to Louisville, KY Night Life: Anjel's Rock Bar

Although we were unsure what to expect, we attended the grand opening of Anjel's Rock Bar, one of the newest additions to Louisville's Fourth Street Live. The pictures we had seen in ads made the place look nice enough, but we had hopes that it would be a venue that would present new opportunities for local bands, as Louisville has a vibrant music scene that seems dominated by rock bands.

We were quite disappointed to find that the only real "rock n' roll" thing about the bar was that they had guitars hung over the DJ booth and quotes from songs painted on the wall as you enter the venue. The rest of the venue was generic feeling, although it did look like they spent a lot of money. Take away the guitars or the quotes, and you have a bland nightclub that plays rock and pop music.

It seems that a "rock bar" should have and feature live bands. Instead, there were two crazy DJ's, one of which jumped up on the DJ booth counter with a real guitar during the song "Iron Man" and proceeded to give a great 10 second performance - of air guitar. That's right, the only performance of the night was air guitar with a real guitar. It was too bad everyone was too plastered to even notice. The place was a writhing mass of extremely intoxicated people, as the bar had given out free drinks to everyone during a two hour period, and to VIP patrons throughout the night. I'm not sure how everyone was able to be drunk as it took up to 45 minutes to get drinks each time.

Décor includes red lighting and walls, some plush seating, chains hanging from the ceiling, over used strobe lights, a very small dance area and the aforementioned guitars hanging over the large DJ booth. The venue's rectangular shape is only broken up by the bar in the middle of the room. The club is basically a box that contains a throng of drunk people.

The rock music, which included quite a bit of pop rather than actual rock, was far too loud to really carry a conversation of any sort unless you stepped out on their small balcony area.

The worst idea of all: The only entrance/exit is at the op of about a "gazillion" steep steps. Somehow, I don't think steps and very drunk people make the best combination.