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| Monday | March 8th | 2010 |
| Friday | June 5th | 2009 |
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+
| Sunday | April 12th | 2009 |
“Stadium Love” by Metric, off of 2009’s album Fantasies.
My relationship with Metric has been a rocky one for years.
They release songs that glimmer gorgeously in shells of glamorous electro-pop; they present weird little diddies with barely any instrumentation besides a stuttering keyboard and Emily Haines’ distinctive voice; they bore you with mush that relentlessly repeats the same tired hooks and fake drums. Each of their albums has its two or three incredible gems that never grow dull, and each invariably has more than a handful of clunkers that stutter and ramble around until they reach a climax. They excite and tease, then collapse in overproduction. We’re in an off-again-on-again relationship.
Fantasies, however, marks a giant leap in the right direction. The songwriting has undergone a subtle but spectacular change: in the past, a sprightly chorus might have been repeated to the point of boredom, but the hooks on these songs remain barbed and deployed to maximum effect. The quiet songs are lovely and sharp, as their predecessors never were. Haines’ voice, to my ear, has never sounded better or more confident: the hesitancy and thinness that she sometimes affects is mostly banished. Most striking and welcome, though, is the relative dearth of electronic sound. Real drums and hammering guitars pounding below Haines’ vocals are such a welcome change from whining synthesizers, and take songs like “Stadium Love” to another level.
At a 2008 Metric concert we were treated to a preview of this song towards the end of the set, and it brought down the house. Phosphorescent white lights flashed behind Haines, silhouetting her nimbus of white-blond hair and setting her flying sweat shimmering, while the band tore into the chorus. The audience didn’t know the song, but within moments were all “ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh”ing in unison as if born to it. We didn’t know that this would be one of the standouts on next year’s album, didn’t know where the hell it came from, we just knew it was like falling in love with Metric all over again.
| Wednesday | March 18th | 2009 |
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Posted by various vapor, assembled. on Mon Mar 8th at 9:09PM
Posted by grand schemes, foiled. on Wed Mar 18th at 5:14PM