Cleveland, OH - House of Blues - Oct. 30, 2017

[Hugh23]

Concert night 1 of 3. Say hello if you see me on the GA main floor.

[Hugh23]

9:05pm

1. Superman
2. Automatic Flowers
3. Big Dumb Rocket
4. Carnival
5. Innocent
6. Rabbits
7. Paper Moon / Life
8. Ballad of a Poet
9. Drop Me in the Water
10. Is Anybody Home?
11. Somewhere Out There
12. R.K. 2029 / In Repair
13. Nice to Meet You
14. Clumsy

Encore (3-4 minutes off stage, then back at it )

1. Not Enough
2. 4AM
3. Starseed

10:37pm

It was a cold, blustery and rainy evening in downtown Cleveland as nearly 1200 OLP fans filled the House of Blues. I felt an under current of energy flowing through the fans excited to see the band. The flood gates flew open and the energy I felt around me came cascading out as a raucous cheer arose from the crowd when OLP took the stage. Everyone, young and old, was swaying to the melody of Superman and singing their hearts out with Raine. At the end of the song Raine immediately noticed the special vibe and said this is the reason the band loves to play live.

I was expecting the same 8 songs from the Clumsy album that were played at previous US concerts to be played here, followed by an intermission and more music. OLP's response to the excited fans was to give a high energy performance. I knew something would be different when Big Dumb Rocket was played before Carnival. The band didn't seem to want to stop at 8 songs and take a break because the momentum was building.

In one of the concert threads on this forum, a member here was describing a recent show from this tour. The person stated they didn't like the song Rabbits because it was too slow and quiet. OLP must have heard you because tonight's version of Rabbits was hard and loud. One of my favorite parts of that song was during the musical interlude 3/4 into it. Duncan and Steve met at the center of the stage while facing each other. Jason's drum kit was between them as the drums, bass and guitar tried to out duel each other.

Other highlights for me included the new and yet unreleased song Raine wrote about Gord Downie, Ballad of a Poet. Raine also made a touching dedication to the family of Christopher who recently died from cancer. Raine mentioned that the last time Our Lady Peace played the HOB Cleveland four years ago, Chris was in attendance. Christopher's memory and his love for OLP was honored by his family attending the show. Raine often uses his megaphone to sing in different songs. Raine used the megaphone to great affect for Not Enough which added to the hard, edgy sound of the song. Steve and Duncan were especially strong on the backing vocals of numerous songs.

I have seen OLP quite a few times and they always deliver a good concert. Tonight seemed like the band really through themselves into their performance. Raine's voice and emotion were exceptional. He used his voice not only to deliver the lyrics, but he also used it as another instrument. I look for patterns in Raine's vocal delivery so I can sing along and imitate him. I found he keeps his delivery familiar, yet he changes it in subtle ways. Tonight he hit all his falsetto notes lightly. As Raine held long notes at the end of a lyric, he would slowly rock back and forth or side to side to make his voice fade in and out. Very enjoyable!

I'm going to the next two shows on this tour. I hope the band can vary the set list a bit to keep me on my toes as they did tonight.

[Hugh23]

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-he ... r-in-years

[blueseeka]

Awesome review Hugh