Sunset Station San Antonio, TX

Although Our Lady Peace is from Canada, for some reason they love coming to San Antonio. They’ve played San Antonio almost every time they’ve toured through the states. Though I really had no idea why, on the way to the show I figured the night’s end would bring about the answer as to why a band would love a town more famous for tejano and ranchero than rock music. By the end of the show though, the venue, the crowd, the energy, the music, it all just seemed to make for a great show.

Opening bands Distant View and Violent Trip both put on rather solid shows, but the crowd was there for one reason only, and it wasn’t the to taste the chili of the 99.5 KISS Chili Cook-Off that was held earlier in the day. From the time Our Lady Peace hit the stage to Ray Kurzweil’s voice talking about machines tricking humans into a false humanity, the crowd erupted and those in attendance were treated to an hour an a half journey into the minds of Our Lady Peace. There was hardly any banter from frontman Raine Maida as the band looked like they were on a mission to just rock the Sunset Station and the people of San Antonio.

They launched right into their signature sound displayed on all four amazing Our Lady Peace albums, odd time signatures, groove oriented guitar work of Mike Turner, great deals of syncopation between drummer Jeremy Taggert and bassist Duncan Coutts, and the striving falsetto/baritone voice of Maida. Mix that with anthemic choruses that can stay in your head as long as you want them there, and you have the sound of Our Lady Peace. The band was on the whole night, and the crowd fed off of every note on every song. The fan favorites were obvious by the crowd responses as they started each song.

Many of the highlights included the radio hits such as "Clumsy" off of the album of the same name. Others included the smashes "Automatic Flowers" and "Superman’s Dead" both also off the Clumsy release, their most commercially successful release to date. Not all of the best moments were those that everyone knew, however, as the band previewed most of their new album Spiritual Machines. A concept album, based on a book the band read by the same name written by Kurzwiel, with very catchy, sonically simple, yet sometimes unconventional songs. From that album, the band really enjoyed playing songs like "In Repair" which is playing on the radio and is the album’s first single and "Life", the new single, both are excellent songs and speak volumes of the quality of the new record.

The highlight of the set though came when the band launched into "One Man Army." This song sent the crowd over the edge, as those who weren’t crowd surfing were singing every lyric to the song. The heavy rhythmical beats laid down by Jeremy Taggert and Duncan Coutts were laced with an almost monotonic raving from Maida who had the crowd, at his every motion, on the edge of sanity. Finally, after an encore, they finished their set with "Starseed" one of their earliest and strongest songs. The song talks about the state of meditation until you can grasp something physical, something concrete, something more to believe in. It’s about going outside of your body to find divination. The crowd at the Sunset Station did just that for an hour and a half and was left with very special memories of a truly great band that cares about their fans. San Antonio made Our Lady Peace feel at home and the band gave something the crowd at Sunset Station wouldn’t soon forget.

j.delagarza ~senior editor~


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