Raine Maida and Our Lady Peace brought The Wonderful Future Tour to Caesar’s Windsor this past Sunday, February 19 for their final tour stop. Supporting them for the final two shows were Toronto alt rock band MONOWHALES.
Our Lady Peace opened the show with an AI character projected on a roughly seven-foot screen welcoming concert goers to the show and then performed The Message from their most recent album, last year’s Spiritual Machines II. The latest album is a direct sequel to 2000’s Spiritual Machines which was inspired by futurist Ray Kurzweil’s 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines.
Kurzweil featured prominently during the show occasionally appearing virtually on stage talking to the audience as well as an AI character named Cassandra. For the song Stop Making Stupid people Famous, Nadya Tolokonnikova of feminist group Pussy Riot appeared virtually to sing along.
The set comprised of a variety of songs largely from the first five albums and the last two, and made sure to include all the popular songs that the casual fan would expect to hear. There was even a surprise of an unreleased single, Neurosis, which was offered as a free download for those in attendance.
Frontman Raine Maida has matured vocally like most singers of a certain age do. His voice doesn’t have the same nasal falsetto as he had in the early days, and that’s a good thing. The show was quite loud and I can imagine not everyone appreciated that, but it did have a good energy, and even my wife who isn’t really familiar with most of the band’s songs enjoyed the show.
Toronto band MONOWHALES opened the night with a rocking performance. Singer Sally Shaar is proof that good things come in small packages. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them perform live a few times now and they win new fans at every show. The energy level and connection with the audience is probably a big reason for them winning the Juno for Breakthrough Group of the Year in 2022 and I predict big things for these three friends from Toronto.
The band’s music is alt rock with an industrial feel to it, especially the song CTRL^^^ off their latest album Tunnel Vision. It’s no surprise they also perform a cover of Nine Inch “Nails The Hand That Feeds”, which I think I like better than the original.
MONOWHALES also offered their fans a free download of a new unreleased single, just like OLP. There was a bit of a wardrobe malfunction for Shaar late in the set, and she took it in good humour with a post on social media saying “Sorry/you’re welcome Windsor”.
Our Lady Peace / Monowhales
Caesars Windsor
Windsor, ON
February 19, 2023
All photos by Dan Boshart
Our Lady Peace
Monowhales
OLP Setlist
- The Message
- One Man Army
- In Repair
- Superman’s Dead
- Innocent
- Potato Girl
- Somewhere Out There
- Drop Me in the Water
- Neurosis
- Is Anybody Home?
- Stop Making Stupid People Famous (With virtual Nadya Tolokonnikova)
- Wish You Well
- All My Friends
- Naveed
- Clumsy
Encore
- Holes
- 4am
- Starseed