Review: An Evening with Our Lady Peace – Ottawa – Centerpointe Theater

Last night, Mike, Vero and I went to Centerpointe Theater to see An Evening with Our Lady Peace; a show where they would play the entire Clumsy album and then a selection of hits. Followed by Night 2 where they would play the entire Spiritual Machines album, followed by a selection of their hits.

We had some decent seats…Row B in the Orchestra, hugging the right wall. This cut off some view of the stage for me, but not enough to matter. However, we were super close to the PA stacks and I believe the bass line from Duncan may have given me a new hairstyle!

The show started off with a classic Clumsy video (which opened up all their Clumsy arena shows) with the old man reciting some poetry. The band came out and ripped into Superman’s Dead and it was all good.

However, I must admit that something was off. At first I thought it was the crowd…Ottawa crowds tend to disappoint me and disappoint me they did. No one stood up in their seats. This is an interesting quandary that people deal with when in a ‘theater’ setting. Do I stand up? Do I rock out? Or am I supposed to sit here and enjoy the music?

So we sat there and enjoyed the music. But it was just weird. No cheering during the songs, no singing along to 4AM, which arguably hasn’t been sung by Raine Maida in years considering it’s usually THE sing-along song for the audience.

I then started to notice the band…and I noticed that Raine definitely was having trouble with his voice. Some of the falsettos weren’t coming through and at one point he was on the megaphone and we stood there wondering where the heck the vocals were. I have no idea if it was user interruption or if we were in a dead spot due to the PA (as Mike theorized).

The stage lighting was also quite minimal and I thought that perhaps this is what the band is going for in this ‘Evening with OLP’. Perhaps they want to have people sit down.

The climax of the set, Car Crash, didn’t pay off in the end as the wails from Raine just didn’t happen. Everyone remained sitting down for the entire show. It was brutal. It was like the band were playing for a bunch of record executives who are deeming if their material is worthy or not.

We left the theater, picked up some excellent posters and a t-shirt and headed to the car where I laid my feelings out to Mike and Vero. I thought the show was brutal. The audience was horrible…it was just an awkward event. They agreed that something was definitely off. Vero thought that perhaps this was the ‘more intimate’ vibe they were going for.

We walked back into the theater hoping for the best. At the very least, I thought that not knowing what song would come up next would be the clincher that would win over the crowd. It is definitely not surprising to know exactly what song is coming up next.

When we got back into the theater, I heard the two guys behind me chatting about the same feelings I had. We chatted about it and Josh was upset that no one was standing up and giving it their all for the band. He decided to take matters into his own hands and got up and cheered for everyone to stand up. He had a great time attracting attention and I felt this would change things. Even before the band showed up again after intermission you could start to feel the electricity in the air. This was a crowd that felt like they had let down their band in the first set and they were going to give it their all in the second set.

The second set starts and everyone is on their feet before the band hits the stage. Josh is running around getting everyone to stand up and cheer. It was a great, redeeming moment in the night…we weren’t alone in feeling that the first set felt out of place. The band came out in full force and opened with Monkeybrains and the power from the crowd and the power from the band was equal and all was good in the world. The smoke show and light show had started up and this was a full on rock show!

I personally felt amazed at how the crowd had taken a 180 degree turn and came back to be one of the best crowds I have ever witnessed. The band were really into it (as they should be!) and they were loving the vibe. The theatrics of Raine Maida came out in his songs, while Jeremy, Duncan and Steve took the charge in giving it their all on their instruments.

At one point, Raine talks about how the first set felt with everyone sitting down while they played…he paused to figure out how to describe the emotion and someone yelled out ‘awkward’ and he agreed wholeheartedly. It was quite the moment for the crowd and the band to be on the same level, and then realize that they have to work together to bring this show to what it *should* be. Raine also put a shout out to Josh who was leading the charge. I enjoyed how he told him to ‘control himself’ but said he was just joking. But then during Naveed he was singing some song with the lyrics ‘control yourself’ and I thought that was a neat link.

The rest of the show was stellar. They had everything a fan would want…some greatest hits, some obscure tracks, some tracks from Spiritual Machines (from tomorrow’s set)…it had everything I wanted to hear.

Some of the highlights (other than hearing the Clumsy album…that was neat, but considering the crowd wasn’t into it, I don’t have good memories about the time other than the fact of seeing some songs that I’ve never seen live was pretty darn cool) included:
One Man Army – One of my fave live tracks as Raine goes spastic with his military walks and whatnot.
Naveed – What a booming bass line to get everyone going. That song can play for hours and I would still love it.
All you Did Was Save My Life – Near the end of the song, Raine down the aisle and appeared up in the balcony seats to get everyone standing up! I had a good laugh when he noticed some kid still sat down and he said “What the hell man? What are you…fifteen? Are you lazy or something?” He sang the rest of the song up in the balcony and it was amazing.
If You Believe – An AMAZING take on a great Spiritual Machines track. I have never seen this live and it was really great.

At one point, Jeremy threw out a drum stick and it ended up between two seats and no one saw it. Mike pointed it out to Josh’s friend who nabbed it and handed it to Josh at one point. I thought this was sweet justice for the guy who led the charge for the night.

All in all, I was very impressed with the night. It started out awkward and had me thinking evil thoughts about Ottawa crowds, but the redemption of the night put some faith in me. Music is the common element between all of us in the crowd and we should embrace that. Embrace it we did.

Night 2 will have Mike and I attending and I hope that we don’t have a repeat performance of people sitting down!