REVIEW & PHOTOS BY ELKE MERMIS
As Canadian electro-rockers Metric broke into their first song of the night at the Granada on Friday, all eyes were on Emily Haines, whose girlish vocals hovered lightly on the thick layers of blue-tinged synths swirling over the audience. The crowd was smitten. They were slain. And they should've been.
After taking a three year break, Metric's disparate parts have reunited from their various solo projects to produce Fantasies, an album that marks the first truly seamless synthesis of Metric's signature glossy electro and dark, twisted cynicism. Made up of Emily Haines and James Shaw -- ex-Broken Social Scenesters -- and Josh Winstead and Joules Scott-Key of Bang Lime, Metric perfectly straddles the line between fame and the underground.
Given Metric's urbane detachment demonstrated on past records, the band's amount of sheer charisma struck me as a total surprise. Don't ask me why, but for some reason I was expecting a night of arty angst and despair, with Haines' slight whine warbling over a dark electric pulse. But, instead, Metric blew me away - with a fucking rock concert.
A whirring metallic hum filled the Granada as Metric began with "Twilight Galaxy," steadily building intensity until exploding into their current single, "Help I'm Alive." Haines bopped around the stage, grabbing hands and seducing fans with slinky poses resembling modern dance.
The girlish delicacy of Haines' voice had nearly evaporated by the third song, hitting "Gold Girls Guns" with a raw power that also rips through a majority of their new album with driving force. Smart, spunky quips and insatiable energy helped Metric establish an immediate rapport with the crowd; and Haines wasn't the only one -- guitar, drums and bass all chugged away with a good-natured intensity, bringing the entire spectacle to a new level, in sound and in crowd connection. (My friend actually saw the bass player diffuse a fight at one point, between two pretty formidable looking dudes--but the thing is, he did it in the middle of a song. Without missing a beat. And he did it by simply looking at them, and shaking his head. Now, that's showmanship.)
As pristine as Metric's performance was in terms of technical skill, the band seemed to loosen up their buttons a little bit, jamming on guitar and bass lines as Haines soliloquized to the audience, spoken-word style: "You know that feeling when you're at a festival with your friends, and you can hear the music off in the distance? I've dedicated my life to that feeling."
The culmination of the night came in the encore with a nearly acoustic cover of "Live It Out," or "Metric's Free Bird," as Haines described it. Lighters came out and hands went up in a slow sway as Haines and co. accomplished their goal for the night: they brought their viewers their post-apocalyptic vision, and in the end, they built the world back up again.
Set List:
Twilight Galaxy
Help I'm Alive
Satellite Mind
Handshakes
Gold Guns Girls
Gimme Sympathy
Sick Muse
Empty
Front Row
Dead Disco
Stadium Love
Encore:
Monster Hospital
Live It Out
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I got suckered into going to this and though it was hard to actually pay attention because I was plotting a move up front to touch Emily Haines' beautiful beautiful skin, I thought it was a pretty stellar live show. Though their music is still pretty bland it was nice to see everyone else who was really into it.
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