Our Lady Peace

Live Nationspresents … Our Lady Peace with special guests The Pack A.D. at The Garrick Centre on April 13th 2012, Winnipeg MB

If you have not heard of Our Lady Peace you must be hiding under a rock. Our Lady Peace or OLP has been kicking around the Canadian music scene since 1991. They have played to sold out arena crowds around the world time and time again. This particular night they happened to be playing infront of the sold out Garrick Centre here in Winnipeg MB. This time they brought along Vancouver’s own rocking duo in the form of The Pack A.D.

The Pack A.D opened the show with a bang! These ladies just plain old ROCK!!!! With a straight ahead rock n’ roll sound that is reminiscent of a mixture of The White Stripes meet the Distillers and just as to not alienate the punk rock fans just a dash of The Ramones. The Pack A.D played for 45 minutes straight with no useless banter to fill time. I could lie and say that The Pack A.D whipped the crowd into a frenzy but I don’t lie. They received a luke warm reception from the Winnipeg crowd why that is I am not sure because these ladies seriously owned that stage for the short time slot they had. Although there was no frenzy they did set the tone for what was to come.

Next up… yup you guess it OLP! Now I have had the chance to be around long enough to have heard enough of OLP to be somewhat familiar with there musical stylings so I knew what to expect. What I did not expect is how much energy the crowd had. OLP who usually plays larger arena shows or just larger venues really held the audience in the palm of their hand for this sold out show of 750 fans. With some larger rock acts you get a over produced rock show with WAY WAY WAY to many lights and other things going on at once to distract you. Not this show. It was a stripped down set with just afew white fabric backdrops and a projector lighting the backdrops it let you focus more on the music then being distracted .

OLP’s “hayday” if you want to call it was back in 1997 with the release of “Clumsy” with such hits as Supermans Dead and Naveed. Now I would disagree with this because after seeing the boys from OLP play on friday evening it does not seem like they have lost anything with time. If anything they have become a more tight knit, focused and seasoned band. OLP played the hits like the aforementioned as well as some other old favourites like One Man Army and Is Anyone Home. Listening to the cd is like listening to them live!!! Raines voice is high pitched and somewhat whiney but blends in perfectly with the array of instruments backing him up as well as spot on melodies by the other two guys in the band.

All in all OLP put on a very entertaining show for their fans and if you are a fan of the band and missed a rare chance to see them in such a wonderfully intimate setting I hope you kick yourself for missing this because you missed one pretty incredible show!