Emily Haines at Bush Hall, London

by Eric Reinford
Photos by Lorne Thomson

Emily Haines has an opinion on bloggers

Specifically, she doesn't like them if they are her ex-boyfriend. Apart from that, she just knows that she needs to be universally appropriate/inappropriate since everyone in the world could potentially read anything she says at any show. I guess this article sort of confirms that as a proof of concept.

While the banter was memorable - at times it was like Sound of Music gone bad: cocaine bumps off nipples... urine samples... these are a few of my favorite things - the music was mesmerizing. Emily Haines can do no wrong.

I arrived at Bush Hall in West London with just a small pocket of knowledge on Haines, gleaned only from reading a love letter written to her, playing Dr. Blind on repeat for the last few months, and my affinity for her contributions to Metric* and Broken Social Scene. She did have some big expectations thrust upon her based on those affiliate acts, but considering I'm pretty much gay for anyone in the Broken Social Scene family, she didn't need to do much to win my affection. But she did anyway.

[*By the way, if anyone knows whether Metric is defunct or whether we can expect another album and tour, please let me know. They were supposedly recording something for a late 2007 release, but since one of her ex-boyfriends seems to have been the lead guitarist, I'm not
optimistic. And since he's also in BSS, I'm not optimistic about Emily singing much with BSS on future records/tours either, which would be tragic. Then again maybe this was a different ex-boyfriend than the blogger and they're still on good terms, or maybe somehow even if they
hate each other they're still musically inclined to share the stage, or maybe she'll trump the ex and he'll be the one left out in the cold. Please be one of those outcomes.]

Haines entered hoodied and grabbed the attention of everyone in attendance with a few proud chords and a bit of vocal reverb. I've never heard an audience stay so unbelievably quiet during a song, ever. And that continued for the entire show. I also can't remember an artist being so seemingly exhilarated by the other musicians on stage - in this case a string quartet. It made me think that maybe this was a special occasion - that they'd arranged for strings just for this leg of the tour and this was the first performance they'd joined for. Then I You-Tube'd Emily and discovered that she's accompanied by strings all the time. So she must just really like strings.

The only letdown was that she only has her album + 1 Neil Young cover to play. I considered going to see her the following night at the Homefires Festival, but it would've been probably the identical show. She's supposed to have an EP (What is Free to a Good Home) coming out in July - I wish she would have given us a sneak peak.

My favorite of Emily's lyrics have already been used in that earlier review ("You won't need a real job, because I would love to pay for you. You could be a good wife to me."), but who cares? Why does everyone want her to pay for them? I just want to break even. It's hell that I'll never probably meet her and that now if I ever do she'll find out that I wrote this and write me off as another foolish blogger, but that hell is a good life.

Setlist:
Our Hell
Crowd Surf Off a Cliff
Doctor Blind
Mostly Waving
The Maid Needs a Maid
Nothing & Nowhere
The Lottery
Detective Daughter
Reading in Bed
The Last Page
Winning

Expecting to Fly

[mp3] Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - "Our Hell" (Knives Don't Have Your Back) | iTunes

[mp3] Metric - "Combat Baby" (Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?) | iTunes