OTTAWA -- Artsy Lady Peace?

In the eye of a storm of fuzzed-up guitars and high-pitched vocals, Our Lady Peace lead singer Raine Maida took time out to speak of the virtues of discovering All About Eve on PBS-TV, "instead of being stupefied by wrestling."

In return, a couple of teens in amongst the 3,500 or so at the Civic Centre Theatre last night screamed out, "You f---in' rule!"

So much for inspiring intellectual thought.

To their credit, Maida, guitarist Mike Turner, drummer Jeremy Taggart, toque-clad bassist Duncan Coutts and auxiliary keyboardist Jamie Edwards weren't about to give up that easily after, in Maida's words, "all the b.s." over their New Year's Eve gig at the Corel Centre getting the heave-ho.

MAKE-UP DATE

Last night was their chance to make up. Did it work?

When Maida hopped on down to the floor to give audience members a chance to warble a little of Hope, rest assured there were no complainers -- the gleeful squeals would've drowned 'em out anyway.

Nor did anyone seemed to mind the band tossing in some of their indie-filmmaking skills on a large centre-stage screen to accompany the proceedings. By the end of the night, I'd have my doubts the mostly teenaged conglomerate would walk away with visions of cinematography dancing through their heads.

Despite such good intentions, Our Lady Peace put on a solid 90-minute set filled with more than just a grab-bag of grunge delights that rank them alongside, say, I Mother Earth and Live.

Their repertoire from Naveed, Clumsy and their latest CD, Happiness ... Is Not A Fish You Can Catch, all feature something familiar, something fans could call their own. Is Anybody Home, Clumsy and 4 a.m. had everyone piping in to a verse or chorus here and there, while body surfers mounted a gleeful campaign through the strains of Starseed, One Man Army, and Naveed.

ODDS AGAINST OPENER

Fan enthusiasm should have held up for openers Blinker The Star.

Curly-haired Pembroke wunderkind Jordon Zadorozny, whose other claims-to-fame include sharing time with Melissa Auf der Maur in the Montreal band Tinker and co-writing a song for Hole, had all the right energy, backed by skilled drumming, dual-guitar solos plus a decent batch of melody-friendly material from their recent effort August Everywhere (with such standouts as the radio-friendly Below The Sliding Doors, the ELO-ish Pretty Pictures and the grungy Strange As They Say).

Unfortunately, the odds were stacked against them with this young alt crowd, not being familiar with these guys. Hampered-sounding harmonies and Zadorozny's inability to hit a lot of high notes didn't help, either.

Guess in this case, unfamiliarity breeds contempt.

JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5