OTTAWA -- Given his years of touring experience, Steve Earle can easily adapt to all kinds of audiences.

 And, in a nutshell, there are really two kinds of crowds -- those who listen and those who don't.

 Both were in attendance for Earle's Coliseum show at Lansdowne Park last night.

 Was it the initial muddled sound mix of Earle and his solid-as-a-rock backup players The Dukes -- touring in support of the 46-year-old's latest album Transcendental Blues -- that struck only a few chords with the 2,000 or so in attendance?

 Maybe, but by the time they hit Taneytown, off '97's El Corazon, Earle's harmonica, Eric "Roscoe" Ambel's swamp-meets-grunge lead guitar, Kelley Looney's driving bass and Will Rigby's backbeat signalled all was well with the sound muses.

 And all was well with upbeat crowd reaction -- at least those on the stage side of the sound board -- during Steve's Last Ramble, Fearless Heart, Hard-Core Troubadour, Billy and Bonnie and I Ain't Ever Satisfied.

 Heck, there were couples dancing about when the gang hit Transcendental track Galway Girl, a slice of Celtic joy buoyed by Earle's road manager on tin whistle.

 As for the response to Copperhead Road, featuring Earle's long mandolin intro, the fist-pumping during the pre-solo guitar-and-drums pounding was pretty much self-explanatory.

 Yet every time Earle dipped into ballad mode -- it didn't matter if it was the haunting Lonelier Than This, Goodbye, or the Guitar Town classic My Old Friend the Blues -- crowd chatter rose to levels that bordered on sheer ignorance.

 Never more alive

 Earle might be the best country-rock troubadour of these times, but if you found he wanted to just barrel through the two hour-plus show -- opting to exchange confident on-stage glances with his bandmates -- all you had to do was wait for a ballad to figure out why.

 It's a shame, really, because the overalls-and-T-shirt-dressed Earle never sounded more alive, more relaxed and more upbeat than he did last night.

 Those who took the time to notice, give yourself a big self-congratulations.

 Oh, and if you did the same for Steve's smiling-purty younger sister Stacey, who opened the proceedings with an even tougher, more chatty audience, give yourself an appreciation award.

 Stacey, a regular Ottawa visitor since the 1999 Tulip Festival, played an all-to-brief solo set that didn't do her full justice.

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5