We saw Metric last night at the Market Showbox. I sweated in places I didn’t know I could sweat, and the front rows were intermittently doused with water bottle spray by kind Showbox bouncers who preferred that people didn’t burst spontaneously into flame.

Emily Haines, shimmering in a gold lame tube dress, spent an hour and a half singing and playing like a woman possessed. Dancing around the stage, doin’ high kicks, the pony, a version of the robot, breaking down and jumping up, posing for the crowd, she was a glittering goddess under the hot lights, and the entire first row never stopped reaching out to her for a single touch.

The band stuck mostly to material from Fantasies, with a couple of bombshells from Old World Underground and Live It Out thrown in for good measure. They started off the set not with a bombastic rendition of a favorite, but by building a wall of sound heightening in intensity, until under the cool blue lights the crowd suddenly recognized the distorted strains of “Twilight Galaxy” and went wild. (They used a theremin! You guys! A THEREMIN!)

The last time we went to see Metric, I was able to see exactly nothing of the band, and at times, the top of Emily’s head. I spent the concert really annoyed at the hulking giants standing in front of me, who would occasionally start dancing by swinging their arms spastically back and forth. Eventually, of course, they clocked my friend, but even that didn’t stop them. When I was informed—after the concert ended—the Emily Haines had spent the entire time dancing around in nothing but a long Hendrix t-shirt, I nearly passed out. I couldn’t see any of it.

But not this time. Every band member, every expression, every chord and guitar change and dance move, I could see it all. A lot of Emily butt, and a lot of her hilarious interaction with the band. And, best of all, nobody was threatening to step on me. A+