Reporter Profile

Name: Lisa
City: Cincinatti
Concert Covered: One Earth Party Q102 Cincinatti June 13, 1998
E-mail: [email protected]
 

   BACKGROUND INFO:  Our Lady Peace took part in Q102's One Earth Party in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 13, along with Fastball, Sister Hazel, Alana 
Davis, and Everclear.  It was a free concert that took place in a nice 
park-type area along the lovely (ha) Ohio River.  Up to 60,000 people 
were at the One Earth Party.  On a side note, Q102 is a top-40 radio 
station that has a nasty habit of playing the same songs over and over 
until they are utterly destroyed. And then they play them some more.   
The event was fairly well organized, and pretty much everyone had a good 
time.  The security guards were pure evil, however... They stole our 
squirt guns...  

   PRE-CONCERT:  The show was set to start at 3 p.m., with The Matt 
DeCoster Band (a local band).  So, of course, we got there at 10 in the 
morning. We set up our blanket right up against the barrier, dead 
center, as close as you could possibly get.  We (2 of my friends, both 
named Sarah) and I met up with 4 other girls who got there at roughly 
the same time as us.  No one else really showed up until after 12.  One 
of the girls, Reena, knew one of the DJs at Q102... He was sure OLP was 
going to soundcheck, and would then come and talk to us.  But OLP didn't 
even get there until around 2. Oh well...  Reena had a Happy Birthday 
Mike, and a We Love OLP sign...  the 2 Sarahs and I, being total punks 
fashioned makeshift banners out of paper towels and duct tape (never, 
ever, leave the house without a roll of duct tape!  DUCT TAPE RULES!) 
that said Happy Birthday Mike, OLP Kicks Ass, and Play Julia. They liked 
our signs. We also gave a birthday card to Mike (purchased by Reena, 
signed by all 7 of us)... Okay, enough of this blabbering, on to the 
show... 

   THE CONCERT:  The band walks out...They open with: 

---AUTOMATIC FLOWERS:  the vocals seemed kind of drowned out, but that 
soon improved... There were about 11 of us up in the front, singing 
along and screaming the whole time...I couldn't really gauge the crowd's 
reaction, I couldn't tell what was going on behind me.  

---SUPERMAN'S DEAD:  a good deal of crowd reaction (from what I could 
tell)... A lot of people sang a long with the "doesn't anybody ever 
know" part.   

---NAVEED:  the intro was jammy and drawn out, as usual...  the Sarahs 
and I had been blowing bubbles up at the guys throughout their set, they 
made Duncan laugh, and Raine was playing with them...I think they 
enjoyed it.    

---CLUMSY:  when Duncan started the intro, someone behind me took it 
upon themselves to yell "Alright, the only song we know!!!"  
*exasperated sigh*.   We got the hand waving started, and a good amount 
of people joined in... They got the biggest crowd response from this 
song. 

---CAR CRASH:  completely amazing, as usual.  the bubbles were a nice 
touch during this song. 

---LET YOU DOWN:  Mike was doing something funky with his guitar at the 
beginning... Duncan was AWESOME during this one.  Raine was ad-libbing 
lyrics near the end... 

---4AM:  nice...(oh that sounds lame) 

---STARSEED:  right before this Raine says really sincerely "This is 
going to be our last song, thanks for paying attention to us."  We were 
shocked because the opening band had played for a longer time than OLP.  
They should've been able to play for at least an hour.  If for no other 
reason than the fact that they rock! 

They played for a grand total of around 50 minutes.  At the middle of 
their set, I looked behind me and just said "oh my god".   By that time, 
there were around 50,000 people there.  At least, that's what the 
newspaper said.  Me and one of the Sarah's had our THs on, Mike saw them 
and smiled/laughed/winked/nodded all in one motion, all while playing 
guitar, mind you.  They were all in good moods, smiling at us and what 
not. Raine was pretty talkative.    The whole concert was surreal, we 
were the only big OLP fans there singing along, and we were in the front, so at least to us it seemed like they were focusing on us.  In our minds anyway :) You never know... It was really intimate, even though there were thousands and thousands of people there.  But OLP's shows are always like that. The crowd was very well behaved... Too well behaved.  I think they won over a lot of new fans by the end of their performance.  Hopefully they'll come back to Cincinnati soon.  After a well deserved break, of course.