Lucky Thirteen

All week, the 13th annual Wavelength festival of indie music has been playing. I had it on my radar but always chose another event: mostly because I have seen a fair number of these bands. With a free gap Sunday night, I finally went to The Garrison for Wavelength's last show.

A small crowd heard electro-drone Castle If/Cell Memory ran through their 2-song set. Both songs were primarily instrumental, driven by a repeating bass track, layered guitar effects, and furious drumming. This might be good music to zone out, but as a live act there wasn't enough performance to hold much interest. It was 3/4 full when Legato Vipers took to the stage. They were also all instrumental, but were more fun. Their set comprised of short, punchy surf-rock but re-invented with modern aesthetics. One downside was the loosy-goosiness, a few songs had missed cues and ended raggedly.

Legato Vipers were joined by The Harlettes, a medley of 4 burlesque dancers. After a group shimmy on the first number, they each had a solo strip-tease spaced throughout the set. Though all wore vintage clothes and hair, Rouge La Rouge with her flaming hair epitomized the classic pin-up girl.

A packed house welcomed re-united-for-one-night local indie darling Henri Faberge and The Adorables. It was an energetic set, with everyone singing, dancing, and clapping (though mostly the performers and not the stand-offish Toronto crowd). At one point, Henri ripped off his shirt to show a hirsute chest, running and dancing and screaming through the crowd. The songs were a fun mix of cabaret-pop, thematically progressing from boy-arrives-in-big-city, boy-stalks-girl, boy-meets-girl, girl-dumps-boy, boy-throws-fit.

There have been some online controversy about the sound quality at these shows. I wasn't surprised as a few of them took place at The Garrison, a venue with generally terrible sound. It was poor tonight, but most egregious during The Adorables' set. Heavy on the drum and bass guitar, Dr. Ew's guitar and Robin Hatch's keyboard were barely audible. Though Henri's vocals were clear, it apparently made perfect sense to mix the others at about 20%. None of the harmonies could be heard and considering that Maylee Todd, Laura Barrett, and Dana Snell are now solo singers, what a waste. Julianne Wilding might as well have not bothered to sing at all.

Though other acts were slated on the bill including The Magic and Cookie Duster, there was no point subjecting myself to further bad sound.