Peace on Earth

Our Lady Peace gets intimate with Spiritual Machines
By KIERAN GRANT -- Toronto Sun

OUR LADY PEACE
Phoenix club, Toronto
Monday, December 11, 2000
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TORONTO -- When a rock band crosses that great commercial divide between the club and the arena, it always takes a little time for them to find their stage legs.

But what happens when an arena band finds itself in a club for the first time? Same thing, apparently.

A select group of Our Lady Peace fans got to find out first-hand at the Phoenix last night, where the Can-rock giants held a "special" small-scale gig in support of their new album Spiritual Machines, which hits stores today.

Okay, so the Phoenix isn't exactly the Rivoli: It's a big room by club standards; with a capacity of over 1,000, it plays host to mid-range acts who sell some records but are still used to intimate shows.

But Our Lady Peace's tenure as a mid-range act was brief when, over six years ago, they emerged from their Sony development deal fully prepped for the summer festival circuit.

And, just as a small-time act might look at their shoes or fiddle nervously when thrust into an opening slot in a stadium, OLP seemed aloof as they took the modest stage.

Where Raine Maida's well-rehearsed formula for heroic rock poses -- dejection, consternation, catharsis, exhaustion, repeat -- might look natural from afar, it just looked like pantomime as the band tested out their Spiritual Machines material.

It could have been that OLP were nearing the end of an eight-date cross-Canada club tour to flog an album they just finished. Or it could be that OLP are unique in that they belong in a bigger setting -- not something that can be said for many bands.

The lofty concept of Spiritual Machines, which was inspired by Ray Kurzweil's book The Age Of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, certainly lends itself to epic stage treatment.

That said, the sound was enveloping and the performance easily lived up to the kind of technical proficiency that has become their live trump card.

Likewise, new songs such as set-opener Middle Of Yesterday, In Repair, Right Behind You, and Are You Sad? made for familiar OLP fare.

The crowd -- made up largely of contest winners and those lucky enough to snap up a limited supply of tickets -- looked on with polite and placid anticipation, but saved the real gusto for later in the set, when OLP turned on a dime and doled out an impressive string of hits, including Automatic Flowers, Superman's Dead, Naveed, Clumsy, and an especially strong One Man Army.

Maida even warmed up and, with self-effacing awkwardness, told a story about a humbling hospital visit with a fan who'd just emerged from a coma.

An encore, featuring 4 A.M., Is Anybody Home?, Starseed and a version of John Lennon's Imagine that had a few punters holding up cellphones to treat folks at home, was suitably over-the-top.

Maybe they just pretended they were in an arena, but ultimately, their legs were there.


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