Altsounds - Metric [Live] @ Manchester Academy 3

Anyone who is not a fan of Metric’s latest album, Fantasies, would have been mightily disappointed with this gig, and presumably any on the entire tour. Only five tracks played on Monday night were not from that album, as Metric clearly look to promote Fantasies hard (they played it in its entirety). It’s perhaps an understandable move anyway, given the gap between old and new material, but never-the-less it’s a relief they are not pushing a turkey.

Opening with “Twilight Galaxy” seemed like an odd choice, until they turned it into a head-banging rock-out at the end, complete with strobe lights. Live at least, it seems Metric are a ‘proper’ rock band and there’s no sitting softly behind a piano for singer Emily Haines when she’s not going solo; this is her day job and it’s dirty work. And yes the ‘someone’ whose got to do it is apparently Emily Haines, as she informs the crowd in the first part of her rhetoric this evening. She babbles on as Miss Haines is often want to do, preaching about how this is her avoidance of having to do the kind of shit job that 99% of the employed audience will be returning to the next morning in order to keep society functioning properly. Thanks for that Emily.

Luckily I am not rating this gig on the banter, but on the very thing we all came there for – the music (except perhaps for the few young Haines-wannabes down the front – they seemed to hang on her every word as though they only came here for some Haines catch-up – well I suppose her lyrics can be saucy – ba-dum-tish). And so the music proved to be as fine live as it is on record. Having been around for around 10 years now, the band are certainly not novices. The playing was as tight as you’d expect from such accomplished musicians, too much so in the ridiculously over-the-top guitar solo from Jimmy Shaw on “Gold Gun Girls”, and Haines proved she is a vocalist, if not a motivational speaker, of genuine talent.

The highlight of the new album, and indeed the evening, was the closer of both, “Stadium Love”. On record it screams “live favourite”, and in truth that’s exactly what it proved to be; the only other tracks to move the crowd quite as much were old classics “Dead Disco”, “Empty” and “Monster Hospital”. Quite whether fans will consider any of Fantasies’s tracks to be Metric classics in the future remains to be seen, but it won’t be for the want of trying on the band’s part. As far as Fantasies is concerned, it seems Metric are happy to Live it Out!

Below is a clip of their final encore track from the evening, "Live it Out".

Altsounds TV Video