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By Nick Christian Back in times before anyone knew anything about anything – the age of naiveté it probably wasn’t called – but before the world’s sense of romanticism went up in flames, some believed that the eyes were the windows to the soul. It was thought that to look into someone’s eyes and see your face reflected back was to look into their core and see yourself as part of it. I mention this putridly pretentious, pseudo-intellectual tale to give some sense of how each and every audience member at Concorde 2 felt in the presence of Emily Haines. Developing a relationship with the audience, the likes of which has been absent from the Concorde for some while, she’ll later describe the show as like ‘the most natural conversation’ with ‘each side communicating perfectly with the other’. Although much of the audience is only loosely familiar with the band’s work before the show, the performance reaches to every corner of the club that nobody seems to feel left out. Haines barely speaks between songs, preferring not to interrupt the momentum, using actions, not words, to make her connection. Cantering through the set-list at a million sweaty miles an hour, the tracks come fast and very thick. Representing but not replicating the new album, melodic numbers ‘Poster of a Girl’ and ‘Ending Start’ slide effortlessly between the roaring rock inferno that is ‘Empty’, the dramatic synth-laden dystopias of ‘Handshakes’ and ‘Glass Ceiling’. Emily Haines plays the banshee just as well as she does the romantic heroine: when she sings ‘When there’s no way out, the only way out is to give in’ her words resounds like a call to the crowd to submit to the moment. You’d better believe she gets her wish. Each
band member seems to perform separately from the other: a sign not of
a disconnection but of a collective confidence and understanding. Shaw
spends much of the set with his eyes shut, immersed in his craft. It’s
the music that holds them as one and the strength of music that provides
Haines with the freedom she needs to hurl herself, body and mind, into
every song. Nothing is held back as she whirls dirvishly around, punching,
caressing and toying with the pit in front of her. Towards the end of
the set she reaches her hands in front of her and gestures for the front
rows to lift theirs. As they duly oblige she leaps on top of the sea of
outstretched limbs: a gloriously climatic act. |
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WHEN
OIB MET METRIC