As I've mention the weekend itself was not all that great, so lets just leave it at me and a couple other people decided to take a nine hour trip up to Sault St Marie to catch OLP performing at River Rave. After a minor 2 hour stop off in Barrie after the car broke down, and a few mishaps later we found ourselves in the Soo ready for OLP to hit the stage.

SETLIST: Automatic Flowers/Superman's Dead/Naveed/Car Crash/Let You Down
4a.m./Clumsy/Starseed/Eternal Life

   Automatic Flowers is the perfect opening song in my opinion. The beginning is so quiet and yet so powerful at the same time. I'm glad they're still opening shows with it. Hope lead us into Birdman, which was quite the treat because at the last couple of shows I've been to they've left the strobe lights out...just something about seeing Raine go psycho at the end of that song is amazing. Superman's Dead was next along with the trademark audience sing-along. Car Crash was superb as always, although ever since I saw the Canadian tour I've felt it's missing something without film of the empty country road. That doesn't make it any less enjoyable though! Don't get me wrong! Carnival and Naveed followed.

   During Naveed a funny thing happened. Raine screwed up a bit. He was just getting into the all important is gone is gone is gone.......and then he stopped......he looked at the rest of the guys (who were still playing) and just kind of laughed. He joined right back in but the look on his face was kind of funny. Let You Down and Hello Oskar were next in the set followed by Eternal Life. I was thinking at this point that it had been a pretty long show and although they didn't play much off of Naveed especially Starssed (which confused the hell out of me) I was quite happy with the show. Imagine my surprise when they finish Eternal Life and I'm expecting them to walk off stage for the encore they break into JULIA!!!!! This was onl y the second time I have ever heard the original live and the first time the PA screwed up.

   By now I'm One damned happy camper! But they still weren't done. As the rest of the guys were doing whatever it is the do when they're not playing I start to hear Raine sing very very quietly. Of course it caught everyone's attenti on and a kind of hush fell over the audience as we tried to figure out what he was singing. The all at once it became clear.

in search of souls
souls in search of something
let it go
let it slide    Just as we had figured out what he was saying he stopped and let the other guys take over with the intro to Stareed. We got to hear the first verse three times that night. Once with just Raine singing and twice when the song actually b egan because Mike's guitar cut out and they started it over. This put away all of my minds little nagging that they weren't doing enough off of Naveed anymore!

   So finally 2 songs after what I though was already a long set they leave the stage. The call for an encore wasn't as loud as some I've heard. It might have just been me though. It was rather loud standing in front of a speaker ;-)

   So back out they come and the crowd goes wild. 4am is quickly becoming a sing along song. I suppose it's because 4am is the new single. I think we got to do a whole verse during it. Needless to say the crowd was still having fun whe n they broke into Clumsy. After Clumsy ended I'm throughly satisfied. I've got my songs from Naveed, I've got my songs from Clumsy and I've got my Jeff Buckley cover. But they weren't about to leave just yet. I couldn't believe it when Raine said "So, do you guys like the Beatles?" Does a bear like honey? To my complete and utter delight they ended the show with Dear Prudence. I can't really remember if everyone else was as happy about it as I was. I was having too much fun by then to care. 2 covers and 13 original songs....now THAT's what I call a set!

PICS! 1.Raine 2.Raine again 3.Raine and Duncan

 -