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LONDON, Ont. - The relaxed, fun-loving guys gets local fans on their feet.
Easy for sure.
Easy to listen to; easy to have fun. And so damn easy, at least it seemed, for the Barenaked Ladies to put on a great show.
Canada's favourite pop-rock band hit the John Labatt Centre stage last night ready to jam for close to 9,000 strong.
When they played Easy, the first single off of their new album, in the encore, they still sounded like a million bucks.
Calling this their BLAM tour (an acronym of their last CD release), the Barenaked Ladies continued to get better as the too-short night rolled on. One hour, 50 minutes just wasn't enough time with them.
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Getting the crowd to stand has been a problem on the Western part of this tour. Not so last night.
The fans on the floor were on their feet just as the opening notes of One Week, their mega hit, sounded.
Their boy-band, synchronized (well, almost) dancing mid-way through the concert was another hit with the crowd, who roared and threw flowers. Shortly after, male underwear hit the stage.
The band -- Tyler Stewart, Ed Robertson, Kevin Hearn, Jim Creeggan and Steven Page -- released Barenaked Ladies Are Me last fall, followed by Barenaked Ladies Are Men, in stores last week.
They played a few tracks off BLAM, such as Wind it Up, highlighted by great keyboard work by multi-instrumentalist Hearn, and Sound of Your Voice. But as they promised at the beginning of the show, the Ladies played the favourites.
Be My Yoko Ono, Grade 9, Brian Wilson and If I Had $1,000,000 were all performed in fine form.
Page (what a voice, what a range) and Robertson, love to interact with the fans. Nobody is better at improvising.
Robertson told about needing curling rocks for a rink on the lake at his cottage. "I Googled and there's one place on the planet that makes curling rocks and it's here in London."
He lamented that the store wasn't open when he phoned. Next, he started singing a ditty about the business, Canada Curling Stone, and was joined by the band.
"Canada Curling Stone -- no one is at home," he sang.
"Please, if you know them, tell them I tried to call."
Attendance last night more than doubled from their previous stop in London (November, 2005) when they performed in the RBC Theatre to a sold-out show of 4,000 fans.
Like the last one, this concert was exceptional, but the RBC did feel more intimate.
BNL deserves the full arena, though, and so do their fans.
Londoners are still recovering from the other great Canadian band, The Tragically Hip, which appeared here a mere 10 days ago.
Now the Ladies breeze through and we're in awe again.
Formed in 1988, the seven-time Juno Award-winning band has sold more than 14 million records worldwide and that will surely grow with this latest release and tour.
BLAM is also green as the Ladies brought their environmentally friendly bio-diesel tour bus to town and announced before the tour they were offsetting their energy use by purchasing wind energy. One more reason to appreciate them.
Opening for BNL last night was Hamilton native and Juno Award nominee Tomi Swick.
Swick played his Top 5 radio hit A Night Like This, Sorry Again and a smooth-sounding Graceland, among others.