Cookin' With Metric: Live at Webster Hall

Metric; Crystal Castles
@ Webster Hall
New York, NY - September 21, 2007

When Emily Haines wasn't talking about giving up the music life to do cooking shows, she was leading her ferocious dance-rock band Metric in a blazing performance at Webster Hall. The half-Canadian, half-American quartet have a few albums that, while good, suffer from filler. Live-wise, the filler becomes substance and the quality becomes the stuff of pure excellence. The band's 3 best songs - "Monster Hospital", "Combat Baby", and "Dead Disco" - shook the club. I mean it. The club literally shook. The crowd would have been dancing all performance long too if it wasn't for the hypnotic light show (it cannot be underplayed how perfect the lighting was) and the presence of Ms. Haines. To sum up Emily in a sentence: She's Madonna if Madonna was a talented musician. In her little cave woman white tiger outfit, she held the audience in the vice-grip of her aura. The masterful bridge between the main set and the encore consisted of Emily making the crowd sing and clap the beat to one song. Who can do that?!
Below is one of a few SPTV mini-clips from the Pennypacker Mobile, a snippet of "Dead Disco" that captures what the lighting and scene felt like from above the fray:


Crystal Castles are a true club-rock trio: dark, a little scary, neo-party monsters. The jumpy lead singer, for whatever reasons, gave off the following vibe: a child, Anime, lesbian. All in one. Who can do that?!