As I mentioned to Kevin last night, Metric are one of those buzz bands that supposedly everyone is talking about, but I don’t know anyone who is (besides me). Does that make any sense? This show was a sort of homecoming for these Toronto ex-pats now relocated to Los Angeles and despite there being no advance ticket sales, a good-sized crowd did show up to welcome them back to Hogtown.

Support was awfully-monickered Boy, who played a set of pleasant, but ultimately bland and forgettable singer-songwriter acoustic pop. They struck me as the sort of band who might place well in a college coffee house competition. They’ve been getting a moderate amount of press lately and I see the CD everywhere (mostly in used stores, take that as you will), so maybe there’s something more noteworthy in what they do that I’m missing, but I don’t feel a great void in my life for not getting it.

Metric took the stage nearly a half-hour later than their scheduled start time of midnight, which you might think would result in a late late night, but when you’re only talking about a 45-minute encore-less set, it’s not really a problem. The brevity of the set was my only complaint, though to be fair, they don’t have that much material. They eschewed the slower numbers off their debut album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? for some uptempo new numbers, keeping the show’s energy level always dimed all the way through. The whole band was positively kinetic onstage with much bounding around, but the focal point of the band was obviously frontwoman Emily Haines – despite being under the weather with a cold, she radiated confidence and sex appeal from the stage. She also photographs well.

So the set was a little short, yeah, but there can be no gripes about the quality of the performance – they left it all on stage, to borrow a sports cliche. Use of samples and loops to reproduce the song arrangements from the album were thankfully kept to a minumum, almost everything came straight from the live band, well-polished from relentless touring. My only request would be that the next time they come through town, they at least break the one-hour mark with their set.

Exclaim! ran a cover story on Metric a few months back.

Before the show, I caught Whale Rider at the Bloor. It was pretty good and made me realize I knew absolutely nothing of Maori culture – not that I think I should be expected to know anything about Maori culture. The performances were all solid if a little restrained and New Zealand won’t be losing the title of ‘most beautiful country in the world’ in my mind anytime soon. Not that I’ve ever been there.

Congratulations to Doc Halladay on his 22nd win of the season yesterday and his upcoming appointment with Cy Young. Esteban who?

I got to bed a little late last night and wanted to be up early enough today to get a little work done, but didn’t want to set my alarm. My body, god bless it, took care of that with a well-timed nosebleed at 8:45. That’ll get you out of bed.

np – Mojave 3 / Spoon and Rafter

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