Canadian indie icons Metric have grown up before our very eyes.

I still fondly recall Metric’s coming out party on the Bluesfest stage six years ago — sharing the spotlight with the likeminded Broken Social Scene, Stars, Jason Collett, Paso Mino (Bahamas) and Gentleman Reg — just as the indie tidal wave was about to crest, and the cool kids crowding City Hall’s back corner lawn all figured they were in on some worst-kept secret.

Well the secret’s been out for some time now, and still, Metric continues to push the envelope, making perhaps the perfect marriage of electro-fused discotheque jams and cutting edge modern rock.

That, and the surefire ability to pack in 15,000 fans and handle headlining duties on the Main Stage, make Metric the perfect closer for this Electro-fied Bluesfest edition.

They managed to pull it off, too, without relying on a greatest hits package that might be reserved for less-seasoned fans.

Instead, the band frontloaded their set with a healthy helping of all-new material from their recent Synthetica, played nearly in its entirety while saving the hit parade for dessert.

Opening as the album does, in a wash of synth with Emily Haines affirming she’s “as f---ed up as they say” on Artificial Nocturne, the band moved seamlessly to track two and the thumping beat of Youth Without Youth, its pulsating rhythm pushing further into a fully-embraced future.

Effusive as always, and dead sexy, Haines rocked a tight black miniskirt, black leather jacket and matching microphone with her best-dressed band in rock — guitarist Jimmy Shaw, bassist Joshua Winstead and drummer Joules Scott-Key — on Dreams So Real, Lost Kitten and Synthetica’s title track, mixing in Empty, from Live it Out, and a few gems from their 2009 breakout Fantasies, including Help I’m Alive and Stadium Love.

On Speed the Collapse — the songs still coming in synch with Synthetica’s tracklist — Haines seems to predict the sea change she’s partly responsible for:

“Drifting in from distant shores / The wind presents a change of course / A second reckoning of sorts” before the kicker in the chorus: “Fate don’t fail me now.”

The track’s harmonized computer-age vocal recalled Haines’ contribution to BSS’ Anthem for a Seventeen-year-old Girl, but she’s not 17 any more.

And for Metric, it seems that fate just can’t fail.

Pure sex

It’s a rare thing to witness the regeneration of an entire genre, especially one so well-established and esteemed as soul, the soul that drips from every pore of Abel Tesfaye and his outfit, The Weeknd.

The Toronto wunderkind, with live drums, electric guitar, keys and bass, cast an intoxicating spell over the Claridge Stage crowd, and he needed no choreography.

All he had to do was stand and deliver, like some latter-day Marvin Gaye.

The Weeknd was like smooth medicine for a techno hangover, and for those bewitched, the effect was so visceral that most of the crowd getting down and dirty with their bad selves likely felt a strong urge to lie back and light a cigarette in the afterglow.

If Metric was sexy, The Weeknd was pure sex.