They came, they Metz, they conquered.
Canadian hardcore band Metz pummels
Manila.
by rick olivares
It’s like the calm before the
storm.
Alex Edkins, bespectacled, hair
unkempt, tinkered with his guitar. He looked like he’d rather be working on
some mad science project as opposed to being halfway around the world while
prepping for a gig in at Mow’s in the sweltering summer heat. “Just give us a
few minutes,” he said to the small crowd that gathered at that alternative
venue called Mow’s in Quezon City that has increasingly been a venue for some
important shows featuring local and foreign indie and underground bands. “And
we’ll get to some rockin’.”
Then the fuzz and the feedback
resounded. Like an air raid siren puncturing the silence of the night. The
pummeling had begun.
Metz, the Canadian hardcore trio
who have drawn comparisons to a young Nirvana (it helped that former Nirvana
producer Steve Albini produced their latest album, Strange Peace and being
signed to that legendary label, Sup Pop added to some of the noise), then
dropped the hammer.
“I feel alone. I can’t go back.
What have I done?” screeched Edkins in the set opener, “The Swimmer” from their
second album, Metz II, while drummer Hayden Menzies gave the skins a thunderous
beating. Bassist Chris Slorach bobbed back and forth with a manic fury. It’s
bedlam.
But Metz is no Nirvana. They are
just as pissed off as the Sex Pistols were. Edkins does remind one of a
snarling Johnny Rotten with equal parts Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye. And there aren’t
any high and low dynamics as the late Kurt Cobain admitted to ripping off the
Pixies. Metz is loud, direct, and abrasive.
It’s a small crowd that gathered
at Mow’s. Pedicab’s Diego Mapa and Jason Caballa are in attendance as are members
of Kapitan Kulam. Emman Jasmin, impresario of underground label, Delusion of
Terror, despite being unhappy about not being able to purchase any of Metz’
vinyl records (the few available were quickly snapped up) was bobbing his head.
Vinyl or not, it’s a night to enjoy and kick down some doors.
Why not? Metz was in town. In
addition to being one of the trippiest hardcore bands around, they gained a
whole lot more notoriety when Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher Tweeted about them
after the release of their third album, the Albini-produced Strange Peace.
The name drop was welcome. “It’s
a cool moment for the band,” offered Edkins before the show.
“When we are able to bring in
bands that we like – and not because they are hot right now in the scene – but
bands we really dig, then it’s a thrill for us and local fans,” added Darwin
Soneja of underground promoter Sleeping Boy Collective which was also
responsible for recently bringing in Boston post-hardcore heroes, The Saddest
Landscape. “When we had a chance to invite them during their Asian Tour, we
said, ‘why not?’”
Edkins professed surprise at the
unexpected response in Manila. “It was a chance to go to somewhere we have
never been,” said the frontman. “We’ve been to China and Singapore and other
places in this region so why not Manila?”
Manila is the band’s fifth stop
in their Asian tour that takes them from Taiwan to China to Singapore,
Thailand, and lastly, Japan, for four shows, before they return to their
homebase in Toronto, Canada.
Their 11-show tour affords them
only a few nights rest in between. “Tours where we hit the ground running can
be very exhausting,” said Edkins. “But it is what we love and we feel
privileged to do this. We are able to carve out our little niche and it’s a
luxury that we appreciate and enjoy.”
So the life of a band on the run,
is to grab some shuteye on flights and layovers, eating and trying to put up a
good show.
The crowd at Mow’s, despite being
small, the band doesn’t shirk their responsibilities. They put on a frenetic
and intense one that races through 13 songs from three critically-acclaimed
albums.
Before the show, Edkins also
admitted that he found it cool that Gallagher liked the band’s music. “We as a
band have this mutual love of old hardcore and weirdo rock music. And our music
is somewhere in the middle with 60s beat and psychedelic music finding their
way in there. So it’s kinda cool when people say we’re like a young Nirvana but
in an odd way. And it’s certainly cool that someone like Noel Gallagher likes
us. It makes all these sacrifices worth it.”
While it is great that fans, even
the most unlikely ones, from all over the world have discovered the band’s
music through the internet and social media, Edkins admitted that cyberspace is
a different world for them. “We’re not great with social media,” he declared. “We
came from a place before the internet. We grew up with mail order records and finding
out about new bands through zines. But if social media and the internet means
kids can find new music then its good.”
And the Manila crowd is no
different.
When the band launched into the
fifth song of their set, “Mr. Plague” from Strange Peace, the crowd recognized
the song as it cranked up and launched into pogos and spastic fits. “Yeah, it’s
amazing when kids in China know us. And it’s amazing too when Manila kids know
us.”
However, having people come up to
the band at Mow’s to ask the band to sign their records and to pose for
pictures can be unnerving. “It wasn’t too long ago that we ourselves were doing
the same thing. So you’ll have to forgive us if we look like snobs. We’re just
not used to this.”
“But it’s all cool. I am surprised
that anywhere we go people know us. It’s a trip.”
Mow’s set list
The Swimmer
Mess of Wires
Get Off
Spit You Out
Mr. Plague
Eraser
Drained Lake
Cellophane
Knife in the Water
Nervous System
Raw Materials
Acetate
Wet Blanket
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