Metric

A small but almost belligerently ecstatic crowd greeted Metric as they took to the stage of the Cunard Centre in support of Grow Up and Blow Away, the band’s recently released long-lost debut album. Emily Haines, characteristically resplendent in her perfectly trashed Jimi Hendrix tee, kept the chatter to a minimum as the band charged through a surprisingly short but unsurprisingly danceable set. The driving bottom-end of Joules Scott-Key’s disco beats and Josh Winstead’s octave bass lines propelled the crowd as Haines’ synth melodies and James Shaw’s frenetic guitar weaved their way in and around the able rhythm section; despite the Cunard Centre’s mediocre-at-best acoustics, everything that needed to punch through the mix did. The band drew most heavily on the new/old Grow Up and Blow Away and their Polaris Prize-nominated Live it Out, playing only a scant two tracks from their 2003 breakthrough Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, the playful "Combat Baby” and the anthemic "Dead Disco.” Live it Out’s "Monster Hospital” and "Poster of a Girl” were set highlights, as was the warmly received "Rock Me Now,” which alternates between spoken word seriousness and falsetto silliness to embarrassing effect on record, but which, live, makes something more like sense. A somewhat de rigueur encore was the only blight on an otherwise unimpeachable performance.