A Metric Monday in Boston Years in the Making
Monday nights aren’t what comes to mind when you imagine your typical concert experience. But the All The Feelings Tour doesn't really operate on typical concert logic, and MGM Music Hall on July 27th was proof of that.
The three-band Canadian indie institution that is Metric, Broken Social Scene, and Stars rolled into Boston deep into a North American run that has been part nostalgia tour, part celebration of friendship, and part proof that the Toronto indie scene that quietly rivaled New York's early 2000s explosion still has plenty left in the tank. Emily Haines mentioned from the stage that this tour had been years in the making, that getting these three bands together on the same run had been a goal for a long time. Watching the night unfold, it was clear why.
Stars opened up the evening early and then Broken Social Scene took their energy and amplified it, literally. Their lineup includes a dozen people on stage at once, including a full horn section that filled out MGM Music Hall. At one point they paused to address the crowd directly. As Canadians, they said, they love America, and they know we'll get through this together (clearly addressing the current state of politics and leadership in the US right now.) The room received the message with cheers. When "Hug of Thunder" arrived, Amy Millan of Stars came out to join them. When "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl" landed as the second to last song of their set, Metric's Emily Haines walked out to sing alongside them, a moment that has been a recurring feature of the tour. Haines, who sings on the beloved BSS song, has been a fixture at these crossover moments throughout the run.
Metric closed the night and the lights stole the first half of the show before the songs did. The production is genuinely impressive, matching the synth-forward, neon-bright sound Haines and Jimmy Shaw have been refining for decades. During "Loyal," the members of Broken Social Scene returned the favor and joined Metric on stage, resulting in more people standing on the MGM stage than this writer has ever seen at that venue. It was a genuinely special moment.
The encore closed on "Black Sheep," the song that introduced a generation of people to Metric through its placement in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Brie Larson's version now so embedded in the cultural memory that the MGM crowd sang it back at full volume with every phone in the room raised. As closing moments go, it was the right one. A song about not fitting in, closed out by a room full of people who clearly found their people a long time ago.
METRIC SETLIST:
Victim of Luck
Oh Please
Youth Without Youth
Monster Hospital
Poster of a Girl
Crush Forever
Antigravity
Now or Never Now
Breathing Underwater
Leave You on a High
All Comes Crashing
Tremolo
Synthetica
Gold Guns Girls
Loyal (with Broken Social Scene)
Gimme Sympathy
Combat Baby
Encore:
Help I'm Alive
Black Sheep
