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TORONTO -- A sold-out, hometown crowd in a hockey arena. What else could the Barenaked Ladies possibly have wanted?
The Toronto folk-pop outfit, officially veterans now given their major label debut, Gordon, bowed 12 years ago, returned home last night with a mega-date at the Air Canada Centre.
And the endlessly inventive quintet, performing for just over two hours in front of 14,000 fans, didn't disappoint.
On a bare stage adorned with white flags, the Ladies let it rip early with co-frontman Steven Page high-kicking up a storm and encouraging a clap-a-long during the second song, Too Little, Too Late, from their 2000 album, Maroon.
They are actually touring in support of 2003's Everything To Everyone, which recently garnered two Juno nominations for best pop album and best group, and was well-represented last night.
In fact, one the evening's musical standouts was the pretty new song Aluminum, which stood up nicely alongside old and older chesnuts like Old Apartment, Brian Wilson and If I Had A Million Dollars.
"Well, a good hearty hello to the GTA," said co-frontman Ed Robertson. "It's very nice to be back home."
"It's exciting -- the Air Canada Centre," added Page, before breaking into an impromptu ode to the ACC.
From there, the duo, and drummer Tyler Stewart, bassist Jim Creeggan and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn, never really backed down in the energy department.
Live performance has always been this band's greatest strength and they've got some nifty new tricks. Among them:
A moving platform featuring Page slumped on a chair in front of a flickering TV during the song Celebrity;
hilarious choreographed grocery cart maneouvres and synchronized swimming-like dance moves during Shopping;
a segment called Beat The Crew, featuring an audience member facing off against one of their crew members in band trivia knowledge;
Creeggan performing an extended bass solo that incorporated hockey chanting and both classical and classic rock riffs;
and Robertson climbing high up into the stands to play surrounded by female fans during Pinch Me.
More heartfelt though was when the five band members gathered around one microphone, Down From The Mountain-style, for countryfied versions of For You, Roadrunner -- as in beep! beep! -- and One Week with Robertson on acoustic guitar, Hearn on mandolin and Creeggan on stand-up bass.
However, it's always been their improvisational banter that's set them apart from other groups. Especially the made-in-Canada material.
Case in point: Robertson related how the woman taking his blood in Scarborough during a recent checkup mistook him for a late-night TV anchorman because his health card actually says Lloyd E. Robertson.
"That's funny -- my health card, for some reason says Peter Mansbridge," joked Page.
Hearn, meanwhile, has never met an instrument that didn't like him as he effortlessly switched between piano, guitar, accordion and the aforementioned mandolin.
In addition to being up for two Junos on April 4 in Edmonton, the Ladies will also be performing.
They've already had a pretty incredible year given their recent appearances on one of the Toronto-shot episodes of Conan O' Brien and the NHL All-Star Game.
Last night appeared to be the icing on the cake.
