Toronto rockers perform hits and new songs for Ottawa crowd
The Canadian band Our Lady Peace headlined Day 2 of CityFolk Festival.
The band came onstage to an electric remix of its 2018 song ‘’Hiding Place for Hearts’’ and then started jamming out with frontman Raine Maida playing the first notes of the bands Wonderwall inspired 1997 hit “Superman’s Dead” to a roar from the crowd.
The band followed with their 2002 track “Innocent,” sending definite chills through the crowd with the famous line “She wishes she was a dancer and that she’d never heard of cancer, she wishes God would give her some answers and make her feel beautiful.”
The bands hit “One Man Army” is what really got the crowd going, with almost everyone in attendance singing along.
The band then played the niche song “Do You Like It,” a track that only die-hard OLP fans seemed to know.
But the band would get back to their greatest hits and play “Anybody Home” and the slower jam “Somewhere Out There” to the crowd’s pleasure.
“Drop in the Water,” from the band’s latest release Somethingness, then followed, accompanied by a stunning light show and tech-inspired background video which fit well with the vibe of the song.
Maida then introduced the next song, “Stop Making Stupid People Famous” with a speech — without naming any names — on how we together messed things up and it’s too late now to look back and change things.e have to live with the consequences of our actions, Maida let the crowd know. The song was good, a heavy jam written during their current tour.
The next song also got a lengthy intro and possibly the loudest ovation of the night when Maida revealed it was inspired by the impression late Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie left on him at a show as a teenager in the early 90s. The song, “Ballad of a Poet,” was the biggest hit off their latest release and had the crowd radiating on every word.
To finish the first part of their set, the band launched into one of their biggest hits by blasting “Clumsy” through Lansdowne Park, sparking a standing ovation.
Maida came back alone for the encore to perform the dark and angelic “4am” on the piano. He would later be joined by the rest of the band to close out the song.
The bass riff of “Naveed” welcomed Danielle McTaggart of Dear Rouge to the stage to help them belt out the 90s alt-rock classic.
The band would officially close out the show with their first-ever hit, the hard-rocking ‘’Starseed,” sending the crowd out into the night on a high note.
Overall, Our Lady Peace put on a great show and their playlist was a smart mix of old and new. I was surprised by the versatility of the band, with songs performed on the piano, acoustically and electronically. I would recommend any Canadian rock fan go see them.
