Me Tapping You Jane

Friday night, I headed to The Garrison for some live music. This wasn't my favourite venue but I was unlikely to ever return, so why not one last visit. Opener Slash Need was a cross between a dance party and performance art. On the dance side, their music was industrial dance meets emo, perhaps what goths listen to if they wanted to move their feet. On the performance side, the band enlisted dancers clad in lingerie-esque outfits and wearing "sock heads" (skin-coloured hosiery with painted with cartoonish features). The music was fun enough that I did dance a bit but I would have liked it more if they hadn't started at 10 p.m. This meant that I couldn't stay for Jane Inc.'s full set.

This was a solo project of Carlyn Bezic. She was great as part of the duo Ice Cream. I was equally impressed when she played bass and sang harmony for U.S. Girls concerts. Over the pandemic, she released 2(!) dance-pop albums as Jane Inc. Finally, I was able to hear her live.

Boy, I wished I could have stayed for the entire show! It was longer to get back to the East-End and I also had a relative visiting. This was fun music (Dancing With You, Human Being) with slinky bass, propulsive drums, and driving synth. 2120 and Gem were bangers that should be on the radio. Now and then, Bezic slipped on her guitar to add funky or heavy riffs. Mostly, she played the large-than-life pop diva persona. Using a ring light as stage effects, bathroom mirror, or smartphone camera, she sang, posed, danced, and shimmied.

As I waited for the crowd to arrive and the show to start, I reflected that the last time I was in the same situation at this venue, it was a 2011 show with Grimes. I wasn't that impressed with her performance earlier that year at The Great Hall so I decided to go home when The Garrison was still mostly empty at 10 pm. In 2012 with her breakout album Visions, she quickly became too big to play grimy bars like The Garrison.

Will somebody tonight become a star? Jane Inc. certainly has indie-cred for the smart lyrics but also writes mainstream-friendly melodies. They just need that one lucky break but I don't think they'll find it tonight. It was a small crowd of local musicians, their friends, and an ever-growing guest list. I've long thought that no band hoping for success should play past 11 pm. No one who can make that phone call and change a career trajectory will be there.