Canadian soap opera watchers and Rolling Stones fans got their first look at the group's new made-in-Ottawa video yesterday when Streets of Love aired on Days of Our Lives.

Canucks got a sneak peek at the video, shot over a hoopla-filled couple of days in August while the group was in town to perform at Lansdowne Park, because Global Television regularly airs the NBC show a day early.

The video is crafted around long, dark, black-and-white concert scenes shot inside Byward Market club Zaphod Beeblebrox, augmented by about 100 fist-raising local extras as members of the crowd.

BROKEN UP

A beautiful girl and a guy with a beard have broken up; the girl wanders through the club while he, at home, shaves off his beard.

Inconsolable but clean-shaven, he heads out to walk the mean Streets of Love. He sees the club, he stops to peer inside, he almost spots the girl, then gets beaten up. He runs away. He gets hit by a cab. He lays in pain on the road. It starts to rain.

Scattered throughout are familiar Ottawa sights, like a York St. parking garage, an Ottawa Police uniform, the Somerset St. bridge and Domestic Foods on Gladstone.

As for the local extras -- the male and female leads were from Toronto -- most will need a magnifying glass and a fast finger on the pause button to find any evidence of their performance.

The video was introduced as two young Days of Our Lives characters sat on a couch watching television. The female suddenly remembered the video was going to be on. She gushed about seeing the musicians and their special effects in concert, her first.

When the video is over, the girl was crying.

"It was just so good," she explained.

Though Rolling Stones fans might find the soap opera introduction angle perplexing, Randy Miller, Virgin Records' executive vice-president, marketing, suggested via press release the unorthodox move secured the band access to the lucrative female 18-34 demographic who make DOUL the top-rated soap opera. NBC Daytime senior vice-president Sheraton Kalouria said the network jumped at the chance to plug into pop culture after 40 years on the air.

The show holds the rights to play the song to accompany storylines for the next four weeks.

Zaphod's owner Eugene Haslam had planned a video release party for today after getting word from Global Television that's when it would air.

MISSED MEETING JAGGER

Haslam, who already missed meeting Jagger and company because he was en route from a vacation in Tunisia during the shoot, planned to forge ahead with the party anyway.

Like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy character he named the bar after, Haslam tends to go with the flow.

"It's Zaphod's," he said. "We'll drink a few beers and sit around and do what we'd normally do."

Zaphod's Rolling Stones video release party takes place today at the 27 York St. club.

Admission is free starting at noon on a first come, first in basis.