Metric and Autolux sparkle and fade

The L.A. outfit Autolux (Eugene Goreshter and Carla Azar) play gauzy, inward rock held together by Azar's steel-bolt drums. For their 5 p.m. set at the Outdoor Theater, when the sun pretty much morphed into a death star hell-bent on burning every exposed square inch of skin, Autolux held their own but didn't wow the somewhat dazed crowd. At their best, these guys can sound like a long lost cut off of Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation," but after so much mannered fuzz, you just want them to destroy something, take a bat to their own work.

Emily Haines, the passionate frontwoman of Metric, seems like the kind of girl who probably stained at least one diary page in junior high with a speck of her own blood (some sort of oath, surely). It's that edgy, vulnerable quality that makes her a little scary and magnetic, a perfect singer to keep your eyes locked on. And how could you not when she's wearing a silver one-shoulder leotard? If last year's lady performer attire was the gauzy white dress, this year's is the leotard.

Haines says the craziest stuff, especially when buying time during technical difficulties, such as this narc-baiting line: "Who's a stoner? I think acid is coming back, I keep hearing about it." Then she launched into a new song, "Satellite Mind," tense and focused and a good sign that Haines has ironed out some of her inconsistencies. She closed with "Monster Hospital," the paranoid disco-punk single off the album "Live It Out." The five girls next to me, who sang every lyric to each other, couldn't have been happier -- one of them, wearing a tie-dyed toga, covered her sweaty friends in glitter, their own sticky, sparkly finale.

-- Margaret Wappler

Comments

[Candyce]

While you were spot on about Autolux, I can't help but feel like you really missed the mark on Emily Haines and Metric. Emily Haines and her boys had everyone pogo-ing and dancing in that death star like sun. Metric definitely had a spot on brilliant set. And there was a lot more people into it then the four girls standing next to you