The rain clouds and showers chased our car along the 401E as my wife, Carolyn, and I traveled to Burlington, ON. from Detroit to see OLP perform live. As we neared our destination the clouds cleared and we had a wonderfully sunny and warm evening for a concert on the Lake Ontario waterfront. Good fortune followed us all during this trip. We were able to score tickets to a reserved area right in front of the stage along with about 200 other fans. On top of that, Carolyn won a Twitter contest for a Meet & Greet with OLP before the show! We spoke with ClumsyGirl618 who was also at the M&G. Our time with the band was very brief as we basically said hello to the entire band and snapped some photos. Raine did tell me the band is continuing to work on new material with producer Arnold Lanni.
We left the backstage area and watched the end of the Collective Soul performance from the reserved area. OLP came out at 7:50pm EST and played a 14 song 70 minute set as listed in a post above. There was a good mix of the most popular OLP hits. The Birdman was a nice surprise in the set list as it is a kick ass song and this was the first time I have seen it performed live. A few other highlights from the show I enjoyed included the acoustic guitar Raine played during Angels/Losing/Sleep. He had a large sticker on the front of the body which read Psycho Nomics. RK 2029 was played as the intro to In Repair, just as on the album. The song ended with an outro into Life. Raine whispered/sang one verse from Life as the music faded to silent. Raine immediately said In Repair was dedicated to Natalee who is a 16 y/o girl awaiting a heart transplant in the hospital right now. He said he couldn't imagine being in her position, waiting to be healed.
Raine continued to to converse with the fans before the start of Clumsy. He told everyone the band is recording new material and they haven't played live in awhile. Raine said playing live on stage beats singing in a studio. Finally, true to form, during the final song of their set, Raine charged out into the sea of fans. He jumped down from the stage and went through the reserved area to the barrier for the GA section. He climbed up on the barrier and he balanced precariously on top of it until he reached out his free arm not holding the microphone. A male fan reached out and grabbed Raine's hand and helped him hold his balance as he sang Starseed.
The entire band's performance was great. Raine sang with emotion and angst. His voice fluctuated beautifully as it should, closely to the way he recorded his lyrics originally. He purposely did not hit the high falsetto notes. Steve and Duncan were on fire too! Steve was laying down the classic OLP guitar riffs which kept everyone dancing as Duncan held up his end of the beat, intensely plucking notes on his bass and singing backup with Steve. Robin Hatch added an esoteric vibe on her keyboard as she also added her voice to back up Raine.
I was disappointed when Jeremy Taggert left OLP to pursue other goals, but Raine and his band mates chose a good replacement in touring drummer Jason Pierce. He was playing on a new set of DW drums which had a unique light blue color and a sparkle finish. Jason is a high energy drummer who is very entertaining to watch. He flails about rhythmically, driving the beat of each song with emotion and some great facial expressions. I'm not saying he is better or worse then Taggert. I feel he is a good fit for the band.
After the OLP set we watched Wheezer perform. It was our first time seeing them and they were good. When the concert was over we lingered about in front of the stage. By chance Steve walked by. We stopped him and told him how much fun we had at the show and how much we enjoyed his performance. He told Carolyn and I the band hadn't played live in awhile and they were a little rusty. He said we might have noticed a few mistakes, but it just felt great to play to a live audience. Steve also told us the band is recording new material and looking forward to touring again when the new album is completed. Below are a few pictures Carolyn took at the show:
Looking out over Lake Ontario: