THE GOOD NEWS: It’s the medium-sized live-music club that downtown St. Pete has been missing forever, or at least since the State Theatre (located right across the street) adopted a nearly completely national-act format, and everybody completely forgot The Bank existed and it starved to death. It’s got a nice big room, a full stage with a full P.A., and is just waiting for local scenesters to rub some colorful character into its newly painted walls. Plus, it’s also already booking some of smaller touring bands that previously required a drive to Ybor. THE BAD NEWS: The Garage is currently beer-and-wine only, and worse, has consistent problems dialing the room sound into anything even remotely pleasant. It’s gotten markedly better recently, however, and hopefully by the time this issue hits, the new club’s nagging live-mix issues will be history.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.