The sandwich board on the sidewalk outside Toronto's Legendary Horseshoe Tavern over the weekend read "Tonight: Our Lady Peace". The surprise shows were billed in the club listings as "Belly Flop Communist", a silly name the multi-platinum Canadian rock band made up and even had emblazoned on T-shirts to sell off the stage.

Our Lady Peace - which has just completed its third album, 'Happiness...Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch' (due Sept. 21) with producer and ex-Frozen Ghost member Arnold Lanni - is scheduled to appear at Woodstock '99 this weekend (July 25) and wanted to work the kinks out of its live show with some warm-up dates, since the band had been sequestered in the studio all year.

On Friday evening, lead vocalist/guitarist Raine Maida, guitarist Mike Turner, drummer Jeremy Taggart, bassist Duncan Coutts and new touring member Jamie Edwards on keyboards and guitar played Key To Bala in cottage country and Barrie, Ont. radio station Y95 divulged the true identity of Belly Flop Communist. Naturally, it sold-out.

Saturday and Sunday, back at home in Toronto, OLP, which headlined Maple Leaf Gardens behind its last album, Clumsy, intended to secretly masquerade as Belly Flop Communist at the Horseshoe but the secrecy wasn't to be. At the last-minute, just for fun, to provoke double-takes, and perhaps ensure a packed house, Our Lady Peace's name was written on the board and club owner JC phoned about 100 regulars to come down.

The 70-minute set previewed new material until the final 20 minutes. It kicked off with "One Man Army", likely the first single from the new album, and continued with "Happiness & The Fish"; the menacing "Potato Girl" about a guardian angel; "Blister"; the catchy stand-out "Is Anybody Home?"; "Waited"; "Lying Awake" about Benny Hinn; "Annie" about a messed up girl in high school who everybody teases and kills everyone (Pearl Jam's Jeremy anyone?); and "Stealing Babies", the intense rock song Taggart's jazz hero Elvin Jones played drums on in the studio which spirals into a jammy adventure and dissonant end.

Our Lady Peace then capped off the night with a handful of hits -- "Superman's Dead", "Carnival", "Naveed", "Clumsy" and "Starseed", providing an opportunity for the audience to participate, singing back the chorus to "Clumsy" for instance and waving their hands in the air.

"We're going to be touring this summer," Maida told the crowd. "If you see the name Belly Flop Communist, come and see us."