What do Lansdowne Park's hapless tenants the Ottawa Rough Riders and Lansdowne Park's newly refurbished Civic Centre have in common?

They both needed frantically to get off to a good start this season -- and they both stumbled early.

The Civic Centre, desperate to attract business now that the shiny new Corel Centre gets all the dough, has been remodeled into a cool concert venue, and last night, 70s rockers The Doobie Brothers kicked things off with a swagger (or is that stagger) down memory lane.

The Doobies, who in their day went through a Spinal Tapian series of line-up changes that did little to inhibit their stranglehold on the charts, were touring this time with an eight-piece line-up (including three guitarists, two drummers and a percussionist-multi-instrumentalist), fronted by singers Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston.

Sitting out this go-round is mellow icon Michael McDonald, which meant we were spared late-period dreck like What A Fool Believes. That meant the bulk of the set was given over to Simmons' and Johnston's rockier, harmony-heavy material. Their genius was to write stuff with enough technical prowess to attract prog-rockers, chunky guitar riffs to delight the party crowd and enough bland melody to land them on the radio and on every critic's hit list.

After a rocky start last night, sound problems cleared up part way through an extended run at Jesus Is Just Alright With Me. A parade of good-timey, toe-tappers followed, highlighted by Johnston's fist-pumper China Grove and Black Water livened by guitarist John McFee's fiddle and Simmons insertion of Our Town's name into the lyrics. Cool!

While it's all very safe and friendly stuff, there's also something stale and tired about the whole transaction. Certainly, if all you're after is a faithful recreation of decade's old hits, the Doobies deliver.

But for the venue's coming out party? Still, in a summer when everyone from Kansas to the Sex Pistols is clambering on the nostalgia lunchwagon, it seems to be what the people want. Too bad more of those people didn't show up.

A new system of draping can now convert the 10,000-seat building into a venue accommodating crowds in the low thousands.

Last night's configuration was designed for a cosy 3,200, but the official attendance was pegged at 1,500. Let's hope the modest interest was because of the headliners' wilting glory, and not because music lovers still have some reservations about the Civic Centre as a concert venue.

SUN RATING: 2.5 SUNS