All The Friends on “All The Feelings Tour”: Metric at TD Arena

Words & photos by Edie Olender

I just received the call that my grandmother is dying in a hospital bed 500 km away. It makes it feel a bit odd to be writing a review of the Metric concert that I attended, since that seems so insignificant now. Though perhaps that night was an encapsulation of everything that I am now feeling. On multiple levels, All the Feelings Tour was a portrayal of the cyclic nature of life and the importance of the beautiful moments with friends that fill the time between the oscillations.  

“Put your hands up ’cause everybody dies.”

Please be quiet. Please stop saying this over and over. 

“Put your hands up if you know you’re gonna lose.”

Is anyone else hearing this? I look for faces through the flashing lights, for a sign that anyone else feels that something is wrong. Is the universe speaking directly to me?

“Put your hands up if you ever feel afraid.”

Everyone has put their hands above their heads. Are we all saturated with the same cosmic panic, but saved by solidarity? Stars, a Montreal-based indie rock band, finishes the last haunting note of their song “No One is Lost,” as I try to make sense of the uncanny feeling that has welled up inside me. Sometimes, I have these lapses in which I do not believe my perceptions, in which I am sure that I am seeing or hearing something the universe has made for my eyes and ears alone. Perhaps I am hearing the lyrics wrong, invaded by my own subconscious. Rorschach-like splotches are projected on the screen behind the performers, which only fuels my delusion that this is some sort of psychological prank the universe is playing on me. Though at the same time, perhaps everyone is hearing these same words echoed throughout the arena, and perhaps we can find peace in the fact that we are all troubled by the string of syllables. 

Curtis, a fellow photographer, turns to me and says that these are the same bands that were popular two and a half decades ago when he was in high school. I confess that I have never heard of Stars before today, and he excuses me for not knowing since they are from before my time. He then tells me how the bands I love will one day go out of style, before coming back into style – the ebb and flow of music popularity. How strange it will be when the bands I adore become obsolete, a collection of memories saved on hard drives collecting dust in the back of a closet. Until my generation is all brought back together for a reunion tour and the younger kids don’t understand what we’re all singing about. 

Is that not beautiful, though, this room of people, all mostly a few decades older than me, singing the songs that they would have sung at my age? At one point during Metric’s set, lead singer Emily Haines told the crowd that she is so grateful for everyone showing up tonight that, even though it seems there may have been some pushback from management about the achievability of this tour, the fact that all these people believed in it and bought tickets has allowed Emily to play music with her best friends night after night. I really believe her when she says that her bandmates are her best friends. I really believe her when she says the opener bands are her best friends. I have never seen a stage filled with so many people and so many bands mixing – it feels more like one long show by one enormous band rather than three sets by three distinct bands. Members of Metric play with Stars and Broken Social Scene; members of Stars and Broken Social Scene play with Metric. The female singers all jump around to the music the way my friends and I hold hands and jump at the club. The horn player finishes his part, so he crosses the stage to dance with the guitarist.  It feels really quite special to see not only the camaraderie in the bands, but also in the audience. Groups on the floor are grooving to the music, and I spot Curtis up ahead who has found his fiancée in the crowd, with their arms draped around each other; it makes me feel homesick for my friends and my partner. 

Earlier in the night, another photographer named Greg told me how this arena would soon be torn down. The city has invested in a controversial project to build a new arena, replacing the current one with new condominiums and extended football bleachers, with concerns flying by about taxpayer dollars, affordable housing, and cultural significance. I look around at the dilapidated ceiling that leaks, the worn chairs, the abandoned viewing suites, and a new arena might not be so bad. However, under the dusty grey ceiling, experiencing this moment in the cycle of time, in the cycle of music coming in and out of style, in buildings being torn down and put up, and caught in this moment in my life with my best friends and family who are all (mostly) healthy and well and alive, I feel really lucky.

Broken Social Scene

Stars