The Sword, Red Fang, Spoon Benders
- Hectic
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
The Regency Ballroom
San Francisco, CA
August 19, 2026
“This must be a metal show, how many women do you see?” “This ain't a metal show, this is a Stoner rock show.”
I’m not sure the gender balance was much different than many metal shows, but there were certainly fewer long hairs than your typical Death Metal gig.
My buddy and I had gone from a pre-gaming session at Benders to catch Spoon Benders, the opening band of a three band bill featuring Stoner / Metal / Doom / whatever heavyweights The Sword and Red Fang.
This particular evening was made possible by our generous corporate overlords at Goldenvoice. In all seriousness though, the nice promotions people who work there are letting us give away tickets to heavy shows at the Warfield and the Regency Ballroom, which is pretty cool.
Enter to win a pair of tickets to any eligible show by clicking the RSVP button below its flyer on our Bay Area metal show listings page.
One cool thing I had not experienced is getting tickets from the Will Call at the Regency allowed us to hang out in the small side area called the Marble Room. It had a bar and some couches that we took advantage of after the opening band, though later on it became crowded of course.
The really nice thing was it had the hilariously named “VIPEE bathroom”, its own bathroom with a bunch of stalls. That’s a major plus at a sold out show at a venue the size of the Regency.
Anyway, on to the bands…
Spoon Benders was a slowish, noisy 3 piece. They were a pretty good young band, not sure exactly what genre I’d categorize them as, but it was worth showing up early enough to catch their set.
One thing that was funny was that on the big screen behind them, their logo was superimposed over a video of a Corgi running through tall grass, your typical heavy music imagery. Sometimes I just don’t get kids these days, even though the band wasn't much older than my kids.
The Sword played second this evening, I think because Red Fang is from Portland. So they are probably the more popular band in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest I’d venture, with The Sword being from Austin, TX. I have their first 3 records, all of which are great, but hadn’t seen them on any of their tours the last couple of years. 2013 at Slim’s (RIP) was the last time I saw them.
The Sword sounded killer and I know most of the songs, except for a new song they played, and a couple others, including something that sounded like a cross between Country music and Bad Company. I guess their later albums diverged a bit from the early stuff.
As great as they were live, I found myself getting bored at times, there wasn’t that much energy up on stage sometimes. I blame myself though, too much thrash metal exposure.
Our headliner Red Fang delivered a much harder rocking set, they even had a small pit at times. Not that I care, I try not to get anywhere near that action.
Red Fang have a bit of the weirdness / edginess of the Melvins, with some equally catchy and rocking tunes. I have all 5 of their records, all great, though their most recent 2021 album Arrows got a bit too much into the weirdness (including a weird fuzzy production) and I had a hard time getting into it. Like the Melvins there as well, though their sound is quite a bit different.
It was a really great set, made me glad I made it out on a Wednesday night to catch this tour.
–Hectic
