WINNIPEG - They say you can't come home again but they clearly forgot to tell Charleswood-raised chanteuse Chantal Kreviazuk, who treated her Winnipeg fans to a very special homecoming show last night.

The gig at the Centennial Concert Hall was special for two reasons: For one, it marked the first time she's shared a hometown stage with her husband, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida. And second, because it doubled as a fundraiser for the newly created Opportunity Fund, a scholarship that allows inner city, aboriginal and immigrant students to build up credits they can apply towards tuition at the University of Winnipeg.

"There are so many people in the world who need our respect, and our love and our protection and our concern," said U of W president Lloyd Axworthy, who introduced Kreviazuk. "We all want to be global citizens, but it starts right across the street."

Philanthropy aside, Kreviazuk's show proved to be a fairly free-and-easy affair, characterized by a moment early on when one of her kids joined her at the piano for an impromptu round of Baa Baa Black Sheep.

"OK, mommy has a show, sweetie," she finally told the toddler (the couple's other son surfaced on Kreviazuk's lap about an hour later). "That probably looked incredibly contrived, but I swear it wasn't."

Even less contrived was the spontaneous treatment Kreviazuk afforded her alt-pop program, letting her spine-tingling, classically trained vocals swoop and soar all over the scale on gems like Beside You, God Made Me, Ghost of You and Time.

She opted for a slinky minimalist approach on the intro to Wayne, segued into full-blown orchestral mode for it's follow-up, Wonderful, and then shifted easily between the two styles on Asylum, about a family friend making a life for herself in Canada after escaping a war-torn regime.

Maida -- who opened for Kreviazuk with a short set of his own material -- was clearly looking to trade in his arena-rock rep for a more bohemian vibe, arriving on stage illuminated by a single, smoky spotlight and launching immediately into a spoken-word number told from the perspective of a female African immigrant.

The beatnik homage continued with a series of downbeat tracks -- rendered even spookier by a backing band of cello, violin, drums and a hooded Kreviazuk on piano -- many of which sounded like later period Radiohead crossed with an especially earnest Tom Waits.

Sun Rating: 3.5 out of 5