Metric!

Kelly and I saw Metric perform live (at the Wonder Ballroom) last night with our friends Ty & Aymie, Miranda, and Kristen. We met at the Wonder Cafe, which in the basement of the ballroom, for dinner. The evening with Metric started there because as Miranda walked up to where we were seated she said "by the way, the band is sitting right over there" pointing across the room. Cool! Anyway, we ate dinner (I had the meatloaf, which was delicious) and chatted well into the set of the first opening band, End of Fashion. We got upstairs to catch the end of their set which wasn’t anything to speak of. The second opening band, Islands, were a lot of fun, and totally nutty. Islands has a couple members from another good (though defunct) band, The Unicorns. There were a total of 7 people on stage, and the range of instruments was all over the place (guitars, keyboards, violins, oboes, maracas, banjos, etc) and the music was very fun. I ended up picking up a CD of theirs while at the show.

When Metric took the stage at about 10pm the crowd went nuts. The show was fantastic, with the lead singer Emily Haines strutting around the stage, totally in control of the audience. After the first copule songs she helped the crowd pull out the poles that divided the underage & overage sections, which left the Wonder Ballroom staff scrambling to put them back up. So punk rock! The band was tight, and the whole performance was great. They played everything from their latest album ‘Live It Out’ and nearly all the tracks from ‘Old World Underground’ but two, I.O.U. and Succexxy. Both of which were missed my Kelly, Miranda and I. Towards the end of the show they invited the audience onstage during the extended jamming of Dead Disco, which ended up getting about 30 or so people crammed onstage while they were trying to perform. Couldn’t even see the band.

The only complaints I had during the show were as follows: I think every guy that was over 6′ tall was at that show, and all standing around or in front of us, AND, the goddammed crowd surfers! A few times during a show like this is expected, but by the time the 20th person was up in the air I found myself secretly hoping that the crowd would just start dropping people. I know, I’m mean, but sheesh! However, both Emily the singer jumped into the crowd (twice!) and Josh the bassist surfed once. Far less annoying when it’s the band members doing the surfing. 🙂

The first time Kelly and I saw Metric was at the Doug Fir a couple years back. The Doug Fir is a much smaller venue where no matter where you are you are very close to the stage. On one hand I’m glad that they’ve moved up to bigger venues, they rock and their fanbase has grown considerably, however I miss the more intimate shows like the one at the Doug Fir a couple years back where I was able to meet and get autographs of the band as they were dismantling their gear. Ah well, still happy as hell that they’re getting the attention they deserve.