Author: ryan

Tonight my friend Miranda and I went to see Emily Haines (singer/songwriter for Metric) perform at the Doug Fir. The evening started with a surprise cocktail party in the company break room; music cranked up, snacks, people playing cards, and even a waiter mixing martini's. The boss apparently decided that due to all the stress everybody's been under the past few weeks, that a party was well deserved. Pretty fun time, and it goes on the long list of reasons why I love working where I do. I'd have hung out longer if it weren't for the plans I'd made.

After leaving the office I met Miranda at the Shanghai Tunnel, where we had some drinks and a meal before heading to the Doug Fir for the show. Kelly had to miss out on the evening unfortunately, due to school. Miranda and I arrived at the Doug Fir about an 45 minutes before the show started. The main floor was arranged with rows of seating (something I've never seen at the Doug Fir), which given mood of the Emily Haines album Knives Don't Have Your Back seemed like the perfect way to do the show. We got in and took a couple seats a few rows from the stage at one end. The opening band, Tall Firs (yup, the Tall Firs played at the Doug Fir, heh), were an interesting and mellow trio, a drummer and two rhythm guitars players / singers (no bassist). The music sounded like it might be a good fit for driving over the mountain ranges on the way to the coast, very chill, not very exciting though.

After a very long intermission (the stage sat, completely set up and empty for over a half hour), Emily Haines and her band The Soft Skeleton took the stage. They immediately started playing, but after the first song or two, Emily paused to talk to the audience, where she seemed a little 'out of it'. She described having had a wreck of a day, something about a stalker freaking her out, and one of the members of the Tall Firs spending time backstage consoling her before she could go on stage (this, I presume, is the cause for the long intermission). She seemed genuinely freaked out, though while she was describing things there were this morons in the back of the place laughing… either they were cold, heartless bastards, or they thought she was being funny or ironic. I didn't detect any irony in Emily's tone, but she laughed along a bit, in something of a helpless / hopeless way and continued on. In between songs she kept sipping on cans of Guinness. As the show went on, she tried talking to the audience about songs but the constant and loud murmur of conversation at the bar was distracting / annoying her. Several times between songs she went on little tirades about it, eventually causing members of the crowd who were paying attention to yell back "shut the fuck up".

As the evening progressed, Emily was either losing hope, drunk, or was too drained (or all three, I couldn't quite tell) that she almost stopped playing completely, looking at the guitar player saying "man, I can't be bothered… should I continue?". I don't think she was drunk, though if she was, she continued to play piano and sing flawlessly. Either way, it was a surreal and very emotional show, one of the strangest I've ever seen. I get the impression that the material and the mood of this solo work is so personal and emotional for her, that she's a lot more vulnerable than while performing with Metric, with her tough, punk-chick persona. And while the show was an emotional roller-coaster (from tears welling up during certain songs, to anger at the morons being so rude, and everything between) it somehow worked. While distracting at times, it was still a good show. I hope that whatever this stalker business is gets resolved and Emily can continue the tour without the mess, and I also hope that she doesn't think of Portland as a city filled with insensitive jerks (and stalkers, if said person was from here).