EDMONTON - The Universal Music Canada representative asked me if I wouldn't mind reminding Sun Media readers that while Jann Arden's performances at the Jubilee Auditorium last night and tonight were sold out, there were still tickets available to her Thursday show in Red Deer.

The lengths some concert-goers will go to obviously vary.

Overheard at last night's show from a guy to his significant other: "You don't think it's proof of my love to you that I'm here?"

Ouch.

Fact is, though, that even if you aren't the biggest fan of Alberta's easy-listening sweetheart on a musical level, you had to have left the Jube with a smile on your face, anyway - the lady can work a crowd and then some.

Arden's double-header dates in Edmonton are in support of her latest album, Uncover Me, a collection of cover songs Arden grew up with.

And, if there's truth to her seemingly tall tales, she sang to a captive audience of her own design: a mural of people, complete with penises, she drew on the basement wall. The woman would not let up.

It might be a legal headache to draft up, but if Universal could wrangle a "Get drunk with Jann Arden" contest in time for her next album, I'd be stuffing ballot boxes and creating e-mail algorithms to win that sucker. She's certainly one of the funniest interviews I've had the pleasure of conducting and tilting a few back with her would probably be a blast.

When she wasn't playing it just for laughs, she even found time to sing.

The biggest reactions came for some of Arden's biggest hits, tunes like Could I Be Your Girl and I Would Die for You, which was even given a brief reggae treatment by the band. Both songs are favourites of Arden's even though she recognizes that they're somewhat depressing lyrically.

"I try to be up," she sighed. "But I think my job as a songwriter is to make you feel better about yourselves."

That included sharing the spotlight with a trio of people from the crowd who were invited to join Arden on stage.

With the three of them seated at a table, Arden regaled them with covers from the new album while they snapped off "Yes, I'm really with Jann Arden" pictures on their digital cameras and cellphones.

About those covers: Uncover Me is an uneven album and while her live renditions of Janis Ian's At Seventeen and Carly Simon's You're So Vain were faithfully done, her cover of the Mamas and the Papas' California Dreamin' rang up high on the karaoke scale.

Thankfully absent from the set list I was given was her mopey take on Pat Benatar's Love Is a Battlefield, which is really quite awful.

Arden is endlessly charming, though, and word from the auditorium's box office is that there are actually a handful of seats left for tonight's show. Get 'em fast.