About two weeks ago, on 7 October, I attended a live concert (ライブ “Live” in Japanese) at the famous Club Quattro in Shibuya. They regularly host really good acts (more rock-indie to mainstream-indie) and this time, I caught Metric.

Metric’s Canadian roots lends to a unique, electro-funk-indie-rock repertoire of music that started more than a decade ago. I’ve been a fan since hearing their song Raw Sugar (yes, one of the songs recommended by the Once Great Kubo Tite of BLEACH fame — I say “Once Great” because the recent pacing of BLEACH has hit rock bottom!) and Monster Hospital. It also doesn’t help that my old workplace used to have this on the rotating playlist! Thanks to well-maintained gig guides like the Tokyo Gig Guide and MUSICism (it also doesn’t hurt to do searches on ticket sites like L-Tike and Ticket Pia; I personally like using e+plus), I found out about Metric’s Tokyo stopover well in advance. Early enough for me to actually get a ticket. Why do I say that? Well, I’ve tried getting tickets to other gigs like Ren Toshite Shigure, but they were sold out really fast. And who say only Singaporeans are kiasu!

The ticket for Metric’s concert, as well as for most live concerts in clubs or smaller event/concert halls, cost about 3500yen including a complimentary drink. Tickets at larger venues have an average price of 7000-8000yen. When compared to Singapore’s rather exorbitant prices (I once paid SG$90 to watch Coldplay, and S$120 for Jason Mraz; Singapore event organizers seem to be in it for profits more than spreading the love of music around), Japan’s ticket prices seem almost reasonable!

I reached Club Quattro around 15 minutes before the entrance time. They had a rather system-ized way of letting the audience in: they’d call out for ticket-holders from a certain number range to enter at intervals. In effect, it’s first-come-first-serve in relation to when you actually bought the ticket (my ticket was 168).

Calpis Soda was one of the drinks of choice. I didn’t want to get dehydrated too fast by getting a beer, so Calpis Soda it is!

The concert only officially started at 7pm, so around 6:15pm, the place was still deserted.

But it started to fill up really fast!

One of the other reasons why I was totally psyched about attending Metric’s live was because school food punishment was opening for them! They played a 45 minute set and also showcased their latest single (which was released on that day). I’m going to put out a long shot here and say that they sound a lot better live. I have a few of their albums and EPs but while they were good and I enjoyed them, their recordings were easily forgettable. The live totally changed that. I now listen to their songs with renewed vigour. They have very good stage presence.

I’m going to guess that Quattro was primarily built for gigs and concerts, because the acoustics for the small but cosy concert space was exceptionally good. I was able to hear every single instrument clearly, without anything overpowering the other. One downfall of Singapore event-halls is that the acoustics is terrible. More often than not, you get the instrumentals drowning out the vocals, or the other way around. Not with Club Quattro. I’ll be attending a few more live concerts next month and will continue to see if this observation (that the acoustics here are better in general) is true!

After school food punishment was done, the crew cleared the stage and set-up for Metric!  When we’re talking about stage presence, Metric wins hands down. Emily Haines (vocals, synthesizer and guitar) is awesome possum. I cannot think of any other phrase to describe her. She totally kicked ass for the whole hour and a half set.

Metric played all my favourite songs, to my delight and had the whole crowd (half gaijin and half Japanese) jumping along. Emily (and her band) doesn’t lead you gently by the hand with her sultry vocals — she whacks you on top of your head and drags you to the stage. It’s a violent reaction when you hear her sing to the band, but it’s a whirlwind vortex of emotion too. I was left reeling after it was over.

Of course the highlight of the day was when I got school food punishment to autograph their latest single (mine was the first they signed, for that particular single) and I took a photo with them as well. I gushed about how awesome they were and how I was going to attend their next live — which I uh, did not get tickets for.

So on a cold, wet night in Shibuya, my heart was aflame.

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Comments ( 3 )

OMG I LOVE school food punishment!! I really really like their stuff and must disagree with you that their recordings are forgettable! They must be super awesome live ><

qop added these pithy words on Oct 25 09 at 5:36 pm

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