Metric – Salle Antoine-Labelle – Saturday, April 10th, 2010
Hamilton, Ontario five piece, Arkells took the stage promptly at 8:00 PM, and immediately began to roll out song after song. They set rock and roll history in Quebec last night as they got the whole crowd to.. you’ll never guess.. snap their fingers together in unison. The band’s stage presence was mind-blowing, and it is incredibly difficult to wrap my head around the fact that they’ve been together for a mere four years. They played as though they were born with instruments in their hands and have been playing together from birth. “Oh, The Boss is Coming!” had the crowd singing “Punch it in, punch it out!” along with band. They ended their set with an unmistakable Eleanor Rigby verse of “All the lonely people”, followed by a frenzied shredding guitar solo.
As soon as the lights turned down low, the mere fact that Emily Haines and co. were up next drove the crowd wild. The band dove right in with an extended intro to “Twilight Galaxy”, and although Haines was simply standing on the stage, the crowd cheered endlessly. “Help I’m Alive” had to have been the pinnacle of the set, with the entire Récréathèque pounding their fists in unison with Haines. On “Gold Guns”, Emily picked up a guitar and rocked out with the guys as she has been known to do. Although “Dead Disco” has been around for quite awhile, nobody seemed to mind hearing it live last night as it was a definite fan favourite of the night.
Metric fans not only showed their appreciation by continuously cheering, but they even brought props! When “Sick Muse” came on, a fan in the front row lit up a sparkler (just like in their music video) to bassist Joshua Winstead’s great content. But that wasn’t all. One fan even went as far as dropping his pants and throwing his boxers to Haines, and another brought along a “Marry Me Emily!!” poster, which he help up proudly throughout the entire show. Even the band seemed surprised with the outpouring of affection they received from the crowd. You could see this by their mouthing of various words of surprise and a few “holy crap’s” and “what the fuck’s”. The show was a complete success and all the Laval natives and Montrealer’s who ventured out to the boonies really lucked out. – Amelia Robitaille
Metric
Arkells
Photography by David Gosselin
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Alec
