Our Lady Peace, Armchair Cynics – Live (July 22nd, 2006)

This concert was, in a way, a turning point in my summer vacation. For you see, from July 18th to the 29th, I have a total of eight concerts that I attended, so those twelve days will surely be the highlight of my two months away from school. It just so happened that this concert found itself right smack in the middle of it all. Concert number four of eight and the first of four concerts at Ed Fest, the summer music festival put on alongside Capital Ex.

Since this was the only day I had the chance to visit Capital Ex with my friends and go on all the rides, I didn’t hurry down to the stage to see the concert (you can never spend too much time with friends). This meant that we missed all of Maurice, the first band/person who opened the show, then, because I had misread the program, we arrived late for the second band too. Still, we got enough of Victoria’s Armchair Cynics to get a feel for them and most importantly, they sounded really good. It wasn’t the best performance, you could tell they would be better in a smaller venue like the Powerplant where they played a few months ago, still it was impressive. Since I don’t know anything about them, there’s not a lot I can except for that I would see them again if they came through town.

After a 30 minute wait, an introduction by Sonic 102.9, and some free T-shirts, Our Lady Peace came on the stage to a massive cheer. Raine Maida hit the stage last, wearing a loose fitting tie and black hat, grabbed the mic and started singing. Halfway into their second song, Innocent, Maida placed the mic across the barrier to let the excited crowd take over the chorus. He then sauntered down the stairs and right into the crowd, proving right off the bat that the show would be a slightly interactive one – and in a way, it was. Later in the set Maida walked down the path way again, jumped the barrier and hurried through the crowd to stand on top of the sound booth in the back – essentially making the back row become the front row. Although, the highlight came when they played their new song, Kiss On The Mouth (which was one of the best songs of the night) and he borrowed a digital recorder from a fan to record the new track saying it was his job to get it on the internet when he got home. And of course, like so many bands do these days, Maida took the opportunity to discredit Bush – but unlike many bands he did it quite an intelligent way.

Still, there were some downsides in the performance. Despite the occasional outburst of interactivity, Maida did seem quite content to sit back and sing deeply into the microphone. His vocals weren’t nearly as strong as I had thought they would be, and were in fact, quite bad at certain times. There wasn’t a ton of movement in the crowd, mainly because of the type of music they play. Still, the crowd did get excited as the band played most of their singles Clumsy, Somewhere Out There, Starseed, Superman’s Dead and more – if you want, you can see the set list here.

Really, this show was a mediocre one. It wasn’t horrible, nor was it great. Out of the row of eight concerts, Our Lady Peace will more then likely be a forgettable one. It if was by itself, it probably would’ve stood out more – but as it stood, it fell short after seeing AFI the night before and Warped Tour before that.