From left: Kevin Drew, Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw share the stage at a 2018 show in California. Drew leads Broken Social Scene, Shaw plays in Metric and Haines features in both bands, though Metric is her main pursuit.Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
Canadian indie-rock icons Metric, Broken Social Scene and Stars are touring across North America, hitting famed mid-size venues such as Los Angeles’s Greek Theatre, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom as well as larger spaces in their home country. In September, they’ll cross the Atlantic to tour the United Kingdom and Europe.
The members of the groups are friends, some since childhood. A few of the musicians belong to more than one of the bands, all formed more than a quarter-century ago. Their All The Feelings Tour passes the vibes test, but whether it is practical or not is another matter.
“Practical?” Stars co-frontperson Amy Millan said with a laugh recently over the phone, spitting out the P-word as if it were an olive pit. “Our entire rock ’n’ roll lives have not been practical. That’s why we are here today, doing this tour together.”
For middle-class musicians, touring is more impractical than ever. Inflation has hit the live music industry hard since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic: costs related to transportation, equipment, hotel rooms and U.S. visas for entertainers have soared. And this isn’t a tour of solo singer-songwriters, either: The sprawling collective Broken Social Scene alone is the size of a basketball team.
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Both Metric and Broken Social Scene have new albums out: Romanticize the Dive and Remember the Humans, respectively. Metric guitarist Jimmy Shaw conceived the tour, which his band headlines, with BSS slotted second on the bill. This makes little sense for the band from a marketing perspective, but BSS singer-guitarist Kevin Drew isn’t concerned.
“Friendship is the priority, and this is an amazing opportunity to be together,” he said. “We’ll go out on our own tour next year.”
From left: Stars features Amy Millan (seated), Chris Seligman, Patty McGee, Torquil Campbell, Chris McCarron and Evan Cranley.Christinne Muschi/The Globe and Mail
Stars’ Millan sings part-time with Broken Social Scene and has been pals with Metric’s lead singer Emily Haines (also a BSS satellite member who contributes to the band’s albums) since high school. Millan’s husband is Stars’ bassist and BSS trombone contributor Evan Cranley. For Millan, the triple-headed tour is a celebration of camaraderie and pure endurance.
“What’s phenomenal is that we’re all still alive to do it together. It’s a gift to be able to watch my friends play every night.”
The new Metric album kicks off with the synth-rock song Victim of Luck. “Let me take you back, it was the start of something,” Haines sings. “I was there, not long before all the stardom.”
On Sept. 27, 2001, Metric and BSS opened for the headlining Stars at Lee’s Palace in Toronto. Admission price was $10. Today, 10 bucks doesn’t buy a beer at the city’s RBC Amphitheatre, where the three bands will play on Aug. 7. The $467.10 Gold VIP Package, which includes a mosh-pit ticket, is sold-out.
Though the three groups share an anti-corporate ethos, the tour is promoted by entertainment colossus Live Nation. On April 15, after a six-week trial on antitrust allegations, a U.S. federal jury found that Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary have illegally operated as a monopoly.
Drew pushed back on the idea of the company as the industry bully: “We know people who work there. Live Nation supports middle-class artists, and we need them to do that.”
Emily Haines of Metric performs at The Greek Theatre in L.A. in 2023. She returned to the venue for the All The Feelings Tour with Stars and Broken Social Scene this month. Canadian dates follow through the summer and fall.Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Metric’s booking agent agreed. “We presented Live Nation with the idea of the tour, and they leaned into it and helped bring it to life,” said Ben Buchanan of Creative Artists Agency. “They’ve been great partners with Metric.”
Touring with friends is not without precedent. From 1975 to 1976, Bob Dylan famously hit the road with fellow travellers Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg and others. He conceptualized their tour, Rolling Thunder Revue, as a barnstorming statement against commercialism and music industry excess.
In an interview with Rolling Stone at the time, Dylan said the idea behind the tour was to “play for the people,” meaning fans in smaller venues at lower ticket prices. The itinerary included stops in places such as Plymouth, Mass. (Memorial Hall, capacity 2,500) and Clinton, N.J. (Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women). The freewheeling trip had no chance of turning a profit.
While the All The Feelings Tour has a warm and fuzzy feel, the people involved can’t afford Dylan’s whimsy – business is business, Gotta Serve Somebody, etc. The bands are operating on their own budgets, Buchanan said, and each of them are “rowing in the same direction to keep costs down.”
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On the tour opener in Austin, Tex., Haines joined Broken Social Scene on Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl. (Her voice is featured on the 2002 recorded version of the poignant chant for one’s younger self.) Millan appeared on stage during BSS’s new Hey Amanda, and both BSS and Stars joined Metric for its new tune Loyal: “So I am and will be loyal to you.” While BSS associate Leslie Feist isn’t on the tour, a cameo here and there from the 1234 star is not out of the question.
Millan wrote in her schoolgirl diary that she dreamed of getting married on a tour bus. Now she’s on the road with her husband, children and friends.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “All of us, all three bands, get to live this dream we started many, many years ago.”
The All The Feelings Tour plays Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary, June 28; Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, June 29; RBC Amphitheatre in Toronto, Aug. 7; Canada Life Place in London, Ont., Oct. 3; TD Place in Ottawa, Oct. 5; Place Bell in Laval, Que., Oct. 7.