After about 350 shows in this city, I haven’t seen a band with such a kind and timid sound get such bad luck, especially coming from Brooklyn and playing their first Toronto show.

I had only heard about the show a few hours earlier but listened to some tracks from Chris Garneau and knew this would be a beautiful set but from the moment it started things went down hill.

I didn’t recognize the guy doing sound but it wasn’t Steve Kado or Steve Shoe. From the first note the Reverb came in loud and overpowered every sound the band tried to play. They would pause to try and fix it, pretty much through out all 5 songs. It just kept getting worse and worse.

Also (being a free night) it was obvious from the ‘chug chug chug’ chanting in the back that most people were just there for a bar and stayed far away from the stage but loud enough to be heard talking and yelling throughout the whole set. It’s like – for the few moments that the Reverb went away you would be even more aware of how many people there didn’t even care about the set happening. It’s their loss. Even if only five of six people came close enough for the experience, the band has obvious potential for an amazing live show if booked in the proper context. Hopefully this will happen in the future.

Chris quietly said they were playing their last song. He started into it and the Reverb interfered at it’s loudest level so far. He eased up trying again, to see what was causing it – then just heard more and more loud talking from the back. It this point he must have signaled to the band, everyone just looked down and started packing up their gear without even saying anything. I really don’t blame them. If they were a louder band just making noise and energy of course I’d just say ‘play through the shit’ – but they deserved better.

Merienbad were a two piece with synths. I liked the construction of some of the beats but by this point I was warn out from a long day so the mostly mid tempo songs and lack of build-up made for a fairly anti-climatic set.