Notes from scrapbook: First time at the Corel Centre. Everclear opened up…excellent band. Went with Shawn, Alain, Joe and Bruce. Nice seats too. Review from defy.ca website: Our Lady Peace. To those of you who don’t have much knowledge behind this rock band…they are a Canadian band who has risen through the last years of Canadian rock status. I, myself was never really interested in Our Lady Peace until a few months ago. There was something about them that never really appealed to me…I had never really heard of them before they released their hit single “Superman’s Dead” and even after listening to that song…I was very disappointed with the band and never really understood why so many people loved them. Then after the months they released more singles on the television that I grew to like…and I believe the one thing that kept driving me to like them was the sole fact that my cousin Shawn loved them and we usually have very similar musical interests…so I figured if they were worthy of Shawn’s worship…they couldn’t be that bad…so in the end…I have become a fairly big Our Lady Peace fan which most likely will grow bigger after last night’s concert. Shawn…thanks for introducing me to your love in music.
To start it off…we have to go back a few months where my friend Alain and I were waiting in line to buy these tickets. They went on sale at 10 and I had the tickets in my hand by 10:04. The funny thing was that the floor seats had sold out by that time which can basically show you how popular they are. I was fairly disappointed in my luck of getting a floor seat (especially after getting up at 8. Good lord!). But we had seats in the 100 level which was just off the floor. And basically we were only two rows up off of the floor so I was very pleased at that. Anyhow…so began the long wait for the concert date…about two months away…until the night of January 16, 1998…
Shawn’s dad gave us a ride to the bus station to get a bus ride out to the Corel Centre. I can not express my thanks to him within the limits of words. Perhaps a case of beer will show my thanks. We took the bus for about 45 minutes while talking about the upcoming concert all the way there…we exited the bus to enter the gargantuan stadium…I believe it can hold up to 18500 people…that’s bigger than the population of Kapuskasing! We entered and found our seats which were basically a little to the right of the stage which provided an excellent view of the stage. We then proceeded to get purchase tour shirts which are always a must-buy at these concerts. It’s the only memento you can get, unless you want to bring your empty pop can home. It was your basic tour shirt with the Our Lady Peace logo on the front with dates on the back…nice shirt. There were Everclear shirts on sale also, as they were the opening band, but I am not made of money so I had to pass on it. Alain, Shawn and I went to our seats where we met up with my friends Joe and Bruce from my school.
Eight o’clock rolled around and Everclear right on time. The lights went out and of course everyone went wild. Over the PA system came a little snippet from the Beach Boys which is used by Everclear to introduce their song “So much for the afterglow”. A wicked song if you ask me. The band was dressed up in white shirts and ties…professional looks for some odd reason. Perhaps they think they have to dress up since they are actually making a living this way. Or maybe they just like to dress up. Let’s just say when I am in a band…I think I’ll dress the same way I always do. Anyhow…Everclear continued through the set singing songs from their new album and ones from their previous album; Sparkle and Fade. Now, I am not the biggest Everclear fan as I have never even heard either of their albums fully. Yet they played all the hit songs such as Santa Monica and Everything to Everyone. All in all, for a band who I never really paid attention to…they put on a good show…if you want to know anything more about their show…as in the actual setlist…let me know since my cousin Shawn knew more than me about them and should have a setlist with his review and something will a little more substance…
Highlight of the Everclear show: They played some instrumental song which was from their new album…excellent song in my opinion as it involves some great guitar playing and some great drum pounding…
At 8:40 they left the stage and the house lights came back up. We commented on the show so far and how Everclear was a decent band. Bruce said that it was kind of hard to understand what the singer was saying sometimes which was true…that’s why I like to hear the CD before going to a concert since you can actually figure it out if you’ve heard the song before…after awhile a giant video screen started playing a Twilight Zone episode called “The Dummy” which was pretty cool. I thought it passed the time while waiting for OLP ( as I will call them from now on.) Of course, I realized that the show was actually part of the OLP theme since it was a story of a ventriloquist and his dummy and how the dummy lived or something like that but in the Clumsy album you see pictures of a dummy in the liner notes and they also show up in their music videos. So it was some sort of underlying theme to the Clumsy album I suppose which was pretty creative.
The lights then went off and the crowd went crazy once again. Then on the giant screen appeared what looked like an old man in a superman costume. Then I realized it was the “birdman” who has appeared throughout both OLP albums…to make some sense to some people…it’s just this old guy who’s on the cover of Naveed (their first album) and Clumsy. So anyhow the video is just showing this guy standing their like some superhero with the audio track coming in and out of static and once in awhile playing bits of O Canada. Now at the start of O Canada, Shawn gets up from his seat thinking that the actual song is going to be played but sits back down after it ends…then after another 30 seconds the song comes on again so then I get up with a salute which was kind of funny…anyhow…at this point we were waiting for the actual band to appear…I had a bet with Joe that they would open with Automatic Flowers while he believed it would be Starseed…a rocking song from the old album. A beer was at stake here but I had that gut feeling…what kind of band opens with an old song anyways? Unless they’re Aerosmith or Van Halen…or some old band like that. Anyhow…the band appears on stage and Raine Maida (lead singer, guitarist) begins his little chant of “do-do…” which is the intro of Automatic Flowers. I was in a state of bliss as the band had finally begun and I had been victorious in my bet for the finer beverage in life.
Automatic Flowers-Well this just got the crows into a roar as it is at hit single right now on the radio/television so basically anyone who doesn’t have the CD, still knows OLP from this song. The lighting was fantastic, the drums were just deafening and the guitars were emitting some of the sweetest tones known to man. Amongst the craziness was the melodic voice of Raine which has a personal touch to it…a voice where you can recognize who’s playing on the radio if it comes on…and it was spectacular. The solo for the song brought a loud roar from all of us as Mike was giving it his all…all in all…a great job.
Hope-One great song off of Naveed which might have confused some of the fans in the Corel Centre since I’m sure half of them were pre-teens who never heard of Naveed before. A truly sonic song with the chorus “My God she said..” ringing in my ears and having me mouthing the words along. These are one of the songs which build up to the ripping chorus and throw back down into the verse. A great job once again.
Superman’s Dead-In the beginning, this was the song that shunned me away from OLP. At this moment, I have come to realize there is much more to this song other than a hit rock song for the masses. There’s so much emotion but into this song. The little intro threw everyone out of their seats including me…for some reason we must have figured you had to stand up to see these guys play…I think standing up shows appreciation to the band in some ways…anyhow the song continued along with the crowd chanting with him on his famous (a…awoohoo) part…if people don’t know what I mean…get the CD! 🙂 Anyhow the song was reaching the ultimate climax/breakdown where everything sort of dies and then starts back up…at the point of the breakdown…the song just stopped. Lighters were amongst us all and the crowd were giving an incredible applause…then down comes a light fixture for some reason and then the reason became clear as soon as the band continued on with the song….”and doesn’t anybody ever know….” the lights came on and engulfed the entire stadium in light…the crowd was singing along with him on this part…I believe he stopped singing to hear everyone but I can’t be too sure…I believe that seeing their fans out in the concert like this must have been the ultimate high…to see everyone’s faces directly upon them…with arms in the air…with their whole body into the music….then the band rips into the “the worlds a subwayyyyyy…subwayyyyyyyyy…” where the lights flicker off the crowd and then the song continues on with everyone…especially me and Shawn (I believe) in awe of the sight that has just appeared before us.
Birdman-Another hit from Naveed which began with some attention from the audience but not much. Not many people recognized it I suppose since they must have jumped onto the bandwagon with Clumsy…their second release. I hope that after they saw the concert they went out to the CD store and picked up their first album. I know I would have. Anyhow, the song begins and Raine is beginning to move around the stage since he doesn’t have his guitar in hand. By the way, his electric/accoustic was pretty nice looking..he was using it for Superman’s Dead I believe. It was a six string. Anyhow, he moved back and forth through the stage, emitting ovations from sides of the stadium as he neared them…then the guitarist started doing some improv where he and Raine just continued on with the “feel him…feel him close” part of the song. Now he added some more lyrics but I don’t know if it’s part of the song since I haven’t heard Naveed that much but it sounded like he was saying “he’s coming” or something. I’ll have to listen to the CD again. Anyhow, the got out of the improv session and continued on with full force. Truly a great song.
Musical Interlude (as I like to call it)-The lights dimmed and it looked like Raine left the stage. The remains of the band began a little jam session which had some really great distorted guitar and the drums were shaking my heart. At one point I swear I recognized a riff in the song so I believed this to be an introduction to the one song which got me hooked on OLP forever….and I was right…it led right into…
Car Crash-Instead of the usual bass line that introduces this song, they had the jam session which was cool enough. This song is a work of art in my opinion. When I heard this song for the first time it changed my view of OLP and made me appreciate them. This is a very dark song with brooding guitar and bass lines…which make the atmosphere tense…in behind the band appears a video which looks like you are traveling down a lone highway in the middle of the night…fits the song perfectly…the emotion put in this song is incredible and was greatly done. I thought that this might be a song where the emotion might have been diminished in a live setting, due to the high vocal notes in it, but I believe it surpassed the CD version. Truly an intense song.
Trapeze-A surprise for the night. Now Raine was telling a story about this song while Shawn was trying to say something to me but I believe I got the main idea of the story…a trapeze artist in Russia (or what used to be called Russia) would always look towards his partner and his wife before his jump every night. One night he looked at his wife yet her eyes were fixed upon someone else. He looked to where the eyes were laid upon and discovered that she was staring at the human cannonball…then the realization came to him as he exclaimed “My wife is sleeping with the human cannonball!” Now I’ll tell you right now that he was using some pretty colourful language at this point but I figure I’d spare you the details and give you the main idea. 🙂 But then they tell us that the song is about the thoughts of the man while he’s in the trapeze act…and whether or not he’s going to catch his fellow wife partner…they rip into the song which is just leaving an expression on Shawn’s face which is indescribable as this song..as I found out later…was played two years ago and never seen again…it was supposedly going to be on Clumsy but didn’t fit into the musical essence of the album…now at this point I realize that the whole concert has had an underlying theme of Clumsy..with the dummy and also….the trapeze act. There were pictures of trapeze artists over the place…I believe that even though Trapeze didn’t make it onto the CD…they wanted some of the essence to be with the album so they took the underlying theme of the song and placed it with their Clumsy imagery. Shawn told me that he thinks this is the first time they have ever played the song in two years which makes me impressed that they would hold it off until the reached the capital.
Let You Down-man, I’m getting pretty tired here writing all this stuff…but I’ll continue on…Let You Down…a great song from Clumsy in my opinion…the intro just picked up everyone’s attention once again and they were pretty good throughout this whole song. All in all…this is a great song in my opinion…one of my favourites from Clumsy. There’s something about it…perhaps it’s the WICKED solo Mike goes into…I’m always a sucker for those guitar solos…
Stripped-down version of Julia-Well as they introduce this song…they begin by saying they received a demo tape from one of their fans (I guess) which had a different version of Julia on it. Now I am a big fan of Julia as it just rocks (guitar-wise.) They then start out with the piano and begin singing very powerfully…now at first I was kind of turned off with this version since I just loved the guitar in it…but then it hit me that this was a great version…with the piano and the vocals going at it strong…it sounded a lot more like a romancy song now but that was still cool. Of course, then the guitar comes in with an underlying guitar riff that matches the piano which was just great. I don’t believe Jeremy was playing the drums for this one but I might be mistaken since it was such a soft song. All in all…I was truly impressed by the amount of work put into this stripped down Julia…there was nothing that could top the unreleased song “Trapeze” and the stripped down version of Julia….well up until this point anyhow…
Naveed-In my opinion…this is favourite song off of Naveed (the album for all you non-OLP fans.) Now, basically it has the normal bass line, verse, chorus kind of thing but the one thing that touches me about this song is the part where it slows down to the part where it sounds like he’s trying to explain something to us….there’s he’s on his knees again….and then it dies down to the part where it picks up when he sings “another day is gone…is gone..is gone…”. Everyone must know what I mean…and the 12-string acoustic leading up through this part always sends shivers up my spine…so when this part comes up into the song….well the part where the song dies down…Shawn looks over at me and comments that this is the most incredible part of any song that ever is…as if I needed to know it! But something happened…the music kept repeating…and repeating…and repeating…it was delaying the inevitable which was throwing everyone into an applause…but then a loud hiss came out of nowhere and I thought that the sound equipment screwed up but alas…that was not the case…the “birdman” appeared once again on the screen and began reciting a poem…now I didn’t know what he was getting at but there was a great smile on Shawn’s face when this was happening…if you didn’t know it already…Shawn is the biggest OLP fan that I know of…the poem ends with the video looping at a certain spot where the birdman says “our lady..our lady…our lady..”. The video dies down and Raine comes out and says that if we didn’t know it…the poem is where they got their name from….Our Lady Peace….truly great….it left me forgetting that the greatest part of the song was coming up…then they start back up with the music coming to the ultimate climax…is gone…is gone…is gone…the only thing that disappointed me( yes, i was minutely disappointed) was the fact that he didn’t have his 12-string acoustic which adds so much to the song but it still left me in a state of bliss.
Neon Crossing-Honestly, this is a good song from Naveed but personally not one of my favourites. I haven’t given it a chance I suppose. But it was a good break from the emotional Naveed. It just rocked us back into our senses.
Carnival-Yet another great song from Clumsy. Another one of my personal favourites. I wouldn’t be surprised if this makes it onto the radio someday. It has everything that a hit song needs. The crowd truly enjoyed this one….after the song…I believe this is where the birdman came back onto the video where it appeared that he was preparing himself for the trapeze act…this is crucial to the whole concert setting…you had to pay attention to the video…no one really did anything during the video since it didn’t have much to it…
Starseed-The familiar intro to Starseed came upon us as spotlights engulfed Mike. The crowd rose and the cry from all of us was heard for miles. Starseed is a rocking song which IS a good opener even though they didn’t use it. Sorry Joe. The drums on this are incredible but as always…I’m partial to the guitaring which was inspiring…someday that’ll be me.
Dear Prudence-Well they introduced this song by saying “does anyone like the Beatles?” which brought forth a yell from everyone except from me since I never really listened to the Beatles in all honesty. Sure, I’ve heard some hit songs and stuff, but nothing that really touched me. So I was thinking this wouldn’t be the greatest of songs. Was I wrong! This was just rocking and made me actually appreciate the Beatles. I’ll have to check out this song someday. Shawn said that they have another Beatles cover song which rocks also. But they put their own flair into it. All in all…another great song…another great song to end the show…well…at least that’s what they had us believe as they said thank you…
Video Interlude-As the fans are cheering for an encore with all their hearts….finally we see a glimmer of hope as the birdman makes one other appearance. He looks up towards the ladder that he must climb to the trapeze act…he is hesitant and the audio is cranked so high that his own breathing is making the stadium shake…it is breathtaking…the hesitation is emitting a cry from all of us…”Do it! Climb the ladder! DO IT!” Everyone around us were waving their arms as if it would help the birdman. I was also crying for the birdman to make it up. Yet our attempts failed as he collapsed onto the floor like he was fighting some personal demon inside of him. Perhaps he was just scared of heights. I’m not sure. All I know is that something of a depression began to seep in as the birdman just lied there. I wasn’t really sure why this was happening until…
4 AM- This song is one of those mellow songs which have emotion into it again. I love the emotion songs. If you ever heard this one…you know what I’m talking about. Then the birdman made sense…it was an intro into 4am which might be a song to symbolize defeat in some ways…and I hope to God I figure out what’s wrong….the crowd singing along as if the statement meant something to us all…this song was bringing the lighters out which made me angry for forgetting to buy one ONCE AGAIN! But to my aid was Alain who let me hold his out for the duration of the song…and what a song it was…
Clumsy-The piano notes seared into the air which lifted everyone up and brought forth the biggest reaction of the night. From the opening lines everyone was singing along all the way through and the band was loving every minute of it…at one point Raine stopped singing but it’s not like anyone could tell…the singing along of the crowd was enough…i’ll be waving my hand, watching you drown…watching you scream…quiet or loud…”. Then he began singing again even though it’s not like he had to. The crowd was just great. The band was just great. It was just great.
And then they wished us all a good night….now here I was anticipating the return of the birdman to go through with the trapeze act but the house lights came on….and I was there pondering why they left the birdman alone on the floor…but as Shawn said…it must have been a great way to introduce 4am…which it was. I said goodbye to Joe and Bruce as they had their own vehicles and I returned to the bus while Shawn, Alain and I talked about the event all the way home. It was truly a great time and event and just left us in awe. Well, at least it left me in awe. If they’re coming towards you….let me know…I’ll be there.
Highlights of the show for me…Car Crash…and Naveed…I don’t have to talk about those two again do I? Great lighting also…strobes were pretty wild at one point in the show…
If you actually made it through this review…I hope you were pleased and maybe felt that you were sitting up there in the 100 level with me. Until next time.
