WINNIPEG -- Is there a band in the world with the endearing split personality of Barenaked Ladies? Probably not -- and that's a good thing, as Martha would say. Over the past decade, this quintet of suburban Torontonians has tickled funny bones and pricked up ears with a winning blend of soulful, heartfelt melodies and witty, informed onstage hijinks. The combination has won it a huge North American following in recent years -- but there's no mistaking, on the basis of last night's show at the Arena, that the Ladies are, in their hearts, a happily Canadian band. After a summer spent playing the sheds and arenas of the United States it was clear BNL were perfectly happy to end their Marooned tour in their home and native land. This show was originally slated for Feb. 26 but on Aug. 28 it became a welcome homecoming and, for the band, a happy tour-ender that enabled them to loosen up, let their hair down (what little they have) and to end their performance sojourn on a high note in front of diehard Canuck fans. How else do you explain between-song patter that managed to praise Winnipeg's Walker Theatre, mock the renaming of Winnipeg Stadium, namecheck Burton Cummings and Salisbury House -- and spoof Gowan and Platinum Blonde at the same time? These guys even picked out Gord Downie and Peter Gzowski lookalikes in the audience. The crowd at the Arena lapped up every little nuance of the Wayne's World-meets-Wayne & Shuster humour of BNL frontmen Steven Page and Ed Robertson (with drummer Tyler Stewart popping in every now and then for good measure). This was an audience which also gets the music -- and so some of the band's tunes, such as Old Apartment, Pinch Me, Alcohol and Never Do Anything, ended up receiving just as enthusiastic a response as more popular fare such as One Week (the group's breakthrough U.S. hit), If I Had $1,000,000 and Lovers in a Dangerous Time (the Bruce Cockburn cover which originally rocketed the Mississauga band to prominence). Still the band leaned to the more playful side of its personality. So it was not surprising that a clown in a tie and boxers managed to ride a scooter around the stage during Lovers; that the rather-less-than hirsute Stewart managed to compose a rap about the beauty of bald men; that Jim Creeggan bastardized much of classical music's popular canon in his bass solo; or that Page and Robertson ended One Week with what looked to be an impromptu polka. Playfulness aside, the Ladies are also a formidable band. Page's soaring tenor, Robertson's clever wordplay, the wonderful colouring of keyboardist Kevin Hearn and the powerful backbeat of Creeggan and Stewart combine to give them the Top 40 hooks that make them the hams they are when they get in front of people. May they end their tours here more often. Kingston's Sarah Harmer, who has been touring the U.S. with the Ladies all summer, marked her third appearance in Winnipeg in six months with yet another provocative, powerful set. The winsome singer/songwriter offered a set of now familiar songs, such as Basement Apt., Weakened State and Don't Get Your Back Up, that were given heft by the powerful arena sound system and by the addition of Winnipegger Marty Kinack to her band. With Kinack, once her soundman, adding piano and electric guitar to the proceedings, Harmer's songs were filled out without losing their plaintive, fragile essence. Don't Get Your Back Up was even augmented by an appearance from the Ladies' Robertson, who sang backup. (More on The Barenaked Ladies and Sarah Harmer)