I was asked to cross-post

I was asked to cross-post this, so here's my review of Monday's Our Lady Peace show.

I’m still just in awe of how amazing this show was. I’ve probably seen 20 or so concerts and the first OLP show at Jillians is the one I’ve always regarded as the best because there was such a great connection between the band and the audience. Well this last show on Monday just upstaged it. This was by far the greatest concert I’ve ever seen, and quite likely ever will.
OLP is one of my absolute favourite bands so I decided I HAD to be front row dead center for this show. Accordingly, I got there at about quarter to 4, that’s over 3 hours before doors. There was one other girl there who had come in from Ohio and right behind me were another 2 who had also driven in. At one point, we were all just sitting at the top of the stairs waiting where the line always is, but then this guy from jillians came along and told us they were closing the game room for the LRS meet and greet and we would have to move back. Apparently LRS had given away about 20 tickets and they got to meet the band and go in first. No Way were they going in ahead of us though! We got the guy, Paul, to give us his word that we could go in ahead of the contest winners. Very cool. He came through for us, too. LRS was kinda mad, but screw them we waited, we were the dedicated fans. LRS did give us a box of free donuts as consolidation, though :)
Well, a band called Greenwheel opened for OLP and though I had never heard of them they definitely rocked. The three other people at the front with me had basically come for greenwheel, they had seen them 20 something times already. Craziness. They were a great band though. It was hilarious how all the girls were going crazy for the lead singer like he was some pop idol or something. It sucked, though, that the previous night someone had broken into their trailer and taken all their gear so they were playing OLP’s guitars and stuff. Poor greenwheel. I’m definitely going to have to go get their CD, maybe even… BUY it.
Then OLP came on. Their show has definitely progressed since last time I saw them. They opened the last show with a SWEET video montage kind of thing about kurzweil’s ideas from The Age of Spiritual Machines. This time there wasn’t as dramatic an opening, but they had a sweet lighting setup and smoke machines and stuff. The only thing that I didn’t like about this was that it really messed with my pictures, the smoke would reflect the flash and without flash the backlighting made them nothing but silhouettes. They played a perfect mix of material from all their albums. A lot of it was from gravity, which was to be expected, but they did not forget some of the amazing material from clumsy, spiritual machines, Happiness, even Naveed. They played “Bring back the sun” which is probably one of my 5 current favourite songs. It was a really long set too, which was very cool. Like I said, I was FRONT row, DEAD CENTER, so Raine was RIGHT THERE. It’s so amazing to have the band so close that when you are singing along you can make eye contact and they acknowledge you. With a band like Our Lady Peace, whose songs are so emotionally charged, this is an experience that borders on religious. Raine would hold his mic out right over us 2 or 3 times, and I could hear myself on the PA. He came down and shook hands. He climbed up on the speaker stack at stage right and hung from the rafters in the ceiling. (Blast my stupid blurry camera and their stupid smoke, I didn’t get a picture ) It was truly incredible. The audience really got into it. The security guy (who looked DEAD UP like Henry Rollins, btw) told me it was packed clear to the back. Obviously it was a sold out show (Sorry, john ) I can’t even begin to say enough about how great this show was. My throat is still sore from singing so much. I was very upset, though, about their merchandise table. As most of you probably know, I’ve been picking up pins lately, but didn’t really intend to get one here as much as for some other bands, but in the end that was all I could afford! T-Shirts were 25 bucks and not even that great! I wanted to get 2 as gifts for friends that couldn’t make it, but 50 bucks was a bit too steep. Other recent shows have had 5 and 10 dollar shirts. I will not use the “S-O” word about one of the best bands around, but it was disappointing.

The real highlight of the show, for me, however, was this picture. In the middle of one of the songs when there wasn’t a lot of vocals really needed, Raine saw me. He pointed right at me, climbed down from stage, took my camera, leaned into the audience and snapped the picture. It was crazy. Everybody there told me how jealous they were. It really just topped off the show because a concert is all about the connection made between the band and the audience and this was such a perfect example of this. I was shaking when I left. I was on a high like nothing ever before. Amazing. Wow. Unbelievable show. More pictures

-G-