Ottawa loves Blue Rodeo and apparently the feeling is mutual, because Sunday night’s Scotiabank Place gig was the second Valentine’s Day in three years that the band headed by prettyboy Jim Cuddy and that tortured artist Greg Keelor spent the most romantic day of the year here.

“It’s Valentine’s and we’re here to play love songs,” a grisly-looking Keelor promised. “Love songs gone wrong, that is.”

Clearly, it didn’t matter what the band played as far as the 6,500 fans, mostly women, were concerned, as long as they kept playing and playing.

Fortunately, after 25 years, Blue Rodeo has a healthy inventory of tunes in its romantic songbook, particularly now that they’re touring Canada with their 2009 double album All The Things I Left Behind, which went platinum in December.

Yes, people love the new record. They just don’t want to hear it in concert. Not when you’ve attained the longevity that Blue Rodeo has. It’s an unwritten rule in rock — stick with the old stuff.

But like lovers, the Rodeos teased the audience, playing nothing but tunes from the new album for the first hour before giving the audience a little of what they came for.

Opening with Never Look Back, Cuddy, Keelor, Bazil Donovan, Glenn Milchem, Bob Egan, new keyboard wiz Michael Boguski and fiddler Anne Lindsay played the new stuff One More Night, Rain Down On Me featuring Cuff The Duke’s Wayne Petti, Don’t Let the Darkness In Your Head, Head Over Heels, It Could Happen to You and Cuddy’s solo One Light Left in Heaven for nearly an hour while the fans sat politely, cuddling affectionately or checking their e-mail, before the Rodeos created a real stir with the classic Rose Coloured Glasses.

That’s when a guy in the 300 section yelled out how much he loved the band loud enough to get Keelor’s attention.

“Security!” the pale Keelor shouted, “Give that man back his money.”

But that was about as raucous as things got at last night’s love-in.

Exciting, it wasn’t. No. In fact, Cuddy and Keelor barely spoke. Instead, they won the fans over with what must be Blue Rodeo’s most musically ambitious setlist ever.

As new material goes, at least Blue Rodeo tries to do something new and interesting. Things were polite until Keelor and Cuddy announced via a duet, that the show was almost over.

As musically satisfying as the new stuff had been, the reality that they might go a whole night without playing Bad Timing or Til I Am Myself Again hit hard.

The lovestruck fans were getting nervous, and saved their biggest cheers for the end, and the band responded in kind.

A couple chords was all it took to get the crowd singing Hasn’t Hit Me Yet and the band followed that up with Diamond Mine — and those in the front rows were practically tearing their clothes off.

The older I get the more that arena concert cliches bug me.

Really, I can do without the references to Ottawa's weather, the insincere jokes about how great it is to be playing any song for the 1000th time or the ceremonial donning of the local hockey team's jersey, which is why Dustin Bentall's laid-back opening set was such a revelation.

The son of alt-country legend Barney Bentall, Dustin is, mercifully, not the flashiest country rocker around. Instead, he played a quiet 45-minute set of country-flavoured rock — or is that rock-flavoured country? Either way, his set was as cool as country gets, reminiscent of early Neil Young, without any of the phony platitudes or empty affections.

Bentall may be low-key and sincere in person, but those happen to be wonderful qualities in a songwriter.