Miércoles 18 Feb 2009, 23:37
I wasn't sure what to expect going in with this show. I knew Metric was not on tour and that they had a new album coming out in April, but I hadn't heard any of the bootlegs. I also had observed that they didn't announced the show on their web page. When my friend mgreenbe and I got seated downstairs the stage had only a piano and an acoustic guitar on it, and I started to get pretty excited.
The show was only Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, and they played an entirely acoustic set. Most of the tracks were off of their upcoming album. They also played a couple older tracks and two covers - Shaw played Pink Floyd's Nobody Home, and Haines played Neil Young/Buffalo Springfield's Expecting to Fly. I particularly loved Nobody Home - I really hope someone taped the show.
It was really a lot of fun to hear Metric in this small venue and stripped down presentation. I'm a big fan of Emily Haines's solo work, and the acoustic presentation at this show heavily echoed those songs. It will be really interesting to compare these versions (which were universally excellent, even though I hadn't heard them before) with the final produced album.
Haines talked a bit about some of the ideas and motivations behind the album. She stressed the "campfire test" - if they couldn't reproduce a song as a few people sitting around a campfire with instruments, it didn't make the cut. As a fan of her solo stuff and the early, less produced Grow Up and Blow Away album, this idea is very appealing to me. On the other hand, it sounds a lot like Mike Doughty's "Dude Theory" idea, and we know how Golden Delicious turned out. None of the songs previewed last night indicated any More Bacon Than The Pan Can Handle-sized missteps, though.
(Man, I kind of feel like an asshole after that last paragraph)
At any rate, the show was a lot of fun. On the downside, it was pretty expensive - tickets were $20 + fees, there was no opener and Metric only played for about an hour. Still, I'm really glad to have seen them in this setting.