EDMONTON - There was a plan, and it was a simple one - DESTROY PUNK ROCK, or at least drive it underground where it belongs, by making music with all the surface trappings of the form and none of the substance.

Wouldn't that just drive you crazy?

Well, it's just a theory. Why else would there be such a virulent anti-Simple Plan brigade?

I'm told that when the band unwisely played the Warped Tour years back, a significant number of punk fans there paid good money to wear "Simple Plan Sucks" T-shirts.

Why else would they do that if the very foundation of their beloved music wasn't threatened by this fivesome of French-Canadian pretty boys?

Result: Simple Plan is currently too big to play the Warped Tour.

They're doing "arenas" now and asking fans to text a vote for the encore song of their choice - at 50 cents a pop. Take that, punks.

But when you take "punk" out of the equation, Simple Plan isn't any worse a kid-friendly band than, oh, I don't know, the Backstreet Boys - just with less choreography, faster tempos and a few more electric guitar tracks.

The show at Rexall Place last night turned out to be a perfectly fine evening of harmless rock 'n' roll aerobics for the 5,500 largely young and female fans, who of course did what young, female fans do in the presence of their favourite pop stars - scream their lungs out.

Add in the waving glowsticks and thrown panties and what we have here is a boy band with loud guitars and tempos that exceed 180 beats per minute in every damned tune.

But at least they're trying to stretch.

Sure, there was a good share of songs heard last night that sound like all modern pop-punk songs, that is, like 99 Luftballoons on steroids.

There were a few tunes whose shallowness can only be matched by the conviction with which they were performed.

The one with the line "I'm a dick, I'm a dick, I'm addicted to you" springs to mind, hilarious to teenagers when it came out six years ago, less so today.

But there were some diversions amongst expected pop-punkery and lyrics that read like greeting card cliches.

They opened with a driving groove in Generation, not to be confused with the Who song.

They toyed with disco beats at one point, evoking a sudden comparison to Duran Duran.

When I'm Gone also revealed the band stretching beyond their past. The song appears on the band's latest record, which is self-titled - and I've always maintained that self-titling a record in mid-career signals a change in musical direction. It seems to hold true once again.

And while one could say that the music of Simple Plan - then and now - is derivative, obvious and contrived, the same can be said for about 90% of all popular music.

Setting the stage for the headliner was another bill of opening bands heavy on quantity over quality - though it was down to two last night when Faber Drive couldn't make it. (I'm told they sound like Hedley; sorry I had to miss that).

Up first was a band called Cute is What We Aim For - whether referring to themselves or their target market wasn't clear. Again, what we have here are a succession of breakneck tempos with lyrics that wouldn't be out of place in a Backstreet Boys song, delivered by a hair-flipping lead singer who can make the girls swoon. Recipe for success!

Next was the jaw-dropping wonder that is Metro Station, basically cut from the same cloth as any other pop-punk band, but with some tasty new-wave trappings on top, along with a hatful of pre-recorded backing tracks.

I can't stand hearing instruments, especially guitars, in a "live" concert when there's no one playing them, but that's just me. The crowd didn't seem to mind a bit.

I was ready to carve the sunglasses-wearing singer as a poseur of the highest order, but perhaps he was being ironic.

Besides, as several of the band's songs were sexier than anything Simple Plan ever came up with, the guy deserved those panties thrown on stage.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall backstage on this tour.