Budweiser Gardens Theatre - 3200+ seating capacity
London, ON
March 10, 2018
9:30pm
1. Hiding Place for Hearts
2. Superman's Dead
3. Innocent
4. Drop Me in the Water
5. Is Anybody Home?
6. Maps (Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs cover)
7. Paper Moon/Life
8. In Repair (acoustic)
9. Somewhere Out There (acoustic)
10. One Man Army
11. Nice to Meet You
12. Clumsy
13. 4am
10:35pm
10:40pm
Encore
1. Ballad of a Poet
2. Hello Time Bomb with Matthew Good
3. Starseed
11pm
The OLP website didn't say this concert was sold out, but I didn't see any empty seats. My wife and I had some great seats to the right of the sound board 8 rows from the stage in front of Duncan. This was my 1st time seeing Matthew Good and his band. I only new two of his songs from radio play. Everyone around me was singing with Matthew. His set was high energy and he pumped up the fans for OLP.
Raine came out wearing this very cool looking black jacket that went down to his knees. His hair and his beard were closely cropped. I thought he looked modern and stunning.The look added to his already great stage presence in concert. Duncan's hair was longer. Steve and Jason looked great, too. The London fans were really into the concert cheering loudly for OLP and singing with Raine.
There were numerous camera men throughout the concert hall only during OLP. They were filming from all angles of the stage and from within the fans' seating area. A little distracting and exciting at the same time. I was thinking the guys in the band would be a bit nervous filming a live show with so many cameras around. The whole band played great and their performance was intoxicating and natural.
The new songs from Somethingness were well received. I especially enjoyed Nice to Meet You & Ballad of a Poet. OLP's cover of Maps was excellent. Raine really threw himself into that song. OLP followed with one of the best versions of Paper Moon I've heard. Steve was exceptional. He hit all his best solos perfectly. The two song acoustic set was interesting. Raine and Steve played guitar. I think Duncan played acoustic guitar instead of bass. I can't be sure. Jason stepped from behind his drum kit and played a bright yellow box he was pounding on rhythmically. It sounded similar to a bongo, but it had a deeper tone and reverberated a bit. Jason's percussion along with the 3 guitars was intriguing and enjoyable.
One Man Army kicked ass! Raine used his bullhorn to sing intermittent lines as he always does. Near the end of that song with Duncan, Steve and Jason raging on their instruments, Raine got taken up by the energy of the song and began crazily spinning around while singing into the bullhorn. I was mesmerized by the band. Raine was using his falsetto which I always love. He used his falsetto just as on the old albums at times and others he would hit in a slightly lower tone and cadence. Raine seems to have embraced his falsetto as he used it in so many different ways on Somethingness. Matthew Good and his band came out during the encore to play their hit Hello Time Bomb. Raine sang most of the lyrics and Matthew Good ripped it up on lead guitar. Another high point in this concert.
I like how OLP is mixing up their set lists slightly from night to night on this tour. They are playing some of the same songs, but in a different order and moving other songs in and out as they please. I like to see unpredictability in the sets as I like to go to multiple shows. I want to go to see OLP next Friday at Rebel. I've never seen OLP in Toronto.
Lastly, I hung out by the OLP tour bus with some other die hard fans long after the show ended. We endured the cold and we got to speak with Duncan and Steve for a few minutes. That is when I met Tom Duska from this board. He and I have been to many of the same OLP shows in the US & Canada, but we've never met until Saturday. Nice to meet you, Tom! I'm sure we will run into each other again.