OTTAWA - It didn’t take The Black Eyed Peas long to get the party started last night at Scotiabank Place.

A knockout at the 2005 Bluesfest, the funky foursome turned out to be a totally entertaining live show.

Performing for a much-appreciative, and pumped audience of 5,200 — that sounded more like the 20,000 cheering an Alfredsson goal.

Since their earliest days as the darlings of Los Angeles’ hip-hop underground, The Peas have become, happily, the latest version of The Monkees, The Village People or even The B-52s, with four free-wheeling costumed characters — William “will.i.am.” Adams, Allan “alp.de.ap” Pineda, Stacey “Fergie” Ferguson and Taboo, who bring the party (and the music) with them everywhere they go.

Naturally, it didn’t take them long to wind up the audience, who were obviously in the mood for whatever The Peas were cooking.

After a boisterous Warner Brothers flourish, The Peas opened with a rousing, head-bopping, booty-shaking number that sounded a lot like Hey Mama and didn’t let up from there, stringing together a frenzied set of soul, R&B and rap dance grooves with Hands Up, Disco Club and Dum Diddly.

From the seamless choreography, lots of stage foreplay and non-stop flow of tunes that relied heavily on their million-selling albums — 2003’s Elephunk and 2005’s Monkey Business, the 90-minute show was as slick as they come.

While everyone took their turn at the microphone, it was apparent right from the start that the crowd favourite was Fergie, who basically made the band after she joined in 2002. Decked in a powder blue track suit, she was a revolving ball of energy, whether she was strutting, singing or doing one of four fashion turns. With her own solo album out, she performed a brief but wicked cover of Guns N’ Roses classic Sweet Child O Mine.

Then it was Adams’ turn to shine while wearing a turtleneck and fedora with a stylish Sinatra-esque tilt for a little lounge number.

If they settled into a groove, it wasn’t for long. After his hard-rapping set, Taboo introduced the zoot-suited and mohawked Pineda as “the king of the Philippines.”

Opening was the latest hip-hop sensation, Rihanna. Sorry, but I don’t get the mania surrounding the teen dance sensation, who was here less than two months ago at Bluesfest. And much like that constipating experience, last night’s opening set was as much a fashion catwalk as concert, replaying her tightly choreographed, sexually suggestive micro-show, a tribute to Bob Marley in a cover of Redemption Song, and constant well-wishes of love and being positive.

Positive platitudes, I guess.