Playing their last run of shows for the year, Sydney via Byron Bay four-piece Glass Towers proved a suitably energetic support act. The band’s sound was genuinely polished, and their radio hit ‘Jumanji’ showed how capable they are of combining complex rhythms with a sunny melody.
‘The Best Of Friends’ displayed a depth to their amiable alt-rock and an ability to infuse the band’s driving rhythms with hints of melancholy and nostalgia. Another Triple J staple, the melodic ‘Halcyon’ brought Glass Towers’ committed set to an end.
From their late 90s beginnings as a cultish indie-pop group, Toronto’s Metric have expanded into a slick synth-pop machine. While the spirit of their early music remains, their growth as songwriters has been steady and profitable.
The band’s trump card is the charismatic, husky-voiced Emily Haines. The singer wasn’t just front and centre throughout the show, but all over the stage. The gold tassels on her jacket whipped about as she jumped and bashed a tambourine, throwing herself into her work and generally involving everyone in the enthusiastic crowd.
They began with ‘Nothing But Time’, a song that built from simple lyrics to an impassioned statement of intent: “I wanted to be part of something / I got nothing but time / So the future is mine.”
More songs from last year’s slick and ambitious Synthetica soon followed, including the gem ‘Youth Without Youth’, which pulled off the trick of sounding genuinely huge without sacrificing intimacy.
‘Speed The Collapse’, also from Synthetica as well as the FIFA 13 soundtrack, kept the energy high before they ventured into slightly more downbeat territory with ‘Ending Start’, one of the most enigmatic songs in their back catalogue (“All this that is more than a wish is a memory / All this that is ceases to be”).
The defining record from the quartet, however, remains to be the 2009 cracker Fantasies. The record serves as a document for the band, who had seemingly perfected a formula for catchy, anthemic synth-pop. Fantasies was well-represented during the set with the likes of ‘Help I’m Alive’, a song that burst with restlessness and a compelling urgency. The brilliantly simple but catchy ‘Sick Muse’ was also played, suggesting Blondie as one of their key influences.
Reflecting on the often tiring and unglamorous years they had spent on the road and the styles and musical movements they had seen rise and fall, Haines introduced ‘Dead Disco’ as a song from the Bush era – which still seems just as relevant today.
The crowd knew every word to every song and never needed much encouraging to join in, especially during ‘Breathing Underwater’.
The pop hooks throughout the triumphant ‘Stadium Love’ led to a blitz of frenetic strobe lighting, enough to witness the band leave on a high.
They soon returned with the tireless Haines jumping around the stage for the adrenalised Fantasies favourite ‘Gold Guns Girls’ before a complete change of pace with the leisurely version of ‘Gimme Sympathy’.
The crowd sang large sections of the song that was dedicated to the late, great Velvet Underground founder Lou Reed. Though Reed’s eclectic approach and grit may initially seem far removed from Metric’s often slick and shiny pop creations, the band has inherited his approach of ‘writing what you know’. Indeed, Metric’s songs retained a personal touch even as they reached for stadium-sized choruses.
A fitting tip of the hat to an iconic songwriter, it was an impressive and unexpected finale, recasting an upbeat pop song in an almost haunting light.
