Celebrating 30 years of music, Our Lady Peace is making their way across North America, showcasing the talent, passion, and staying power that have defined the Canadian rock band for decades.
North American fans are always quick to jump on tickets when Our Lady Peace announces a headlining run through the States. The Canadian alternative rock band remains a cornerstone for those who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, with many having the 1997 sophomore album Clumsy on repeat throughout the mid 90s.
Boston was buzzing as fans poured in from the MBTA and North Station garage, all funneling toward Big Night Live. The venue, connected directly to TD Garden, is easy to find, but it also means sharing space with whatever event is happening next door.
On this night, that meant a crossover of crowds. As Our Lady Peace fans lined up outside the venue, Celtics fans filled the same sidewalks in green and white. The contrast was hard to miss, rock fans and diehard sports fans weaving through each other, setting the tone for a uniquely Boston pre show scene before the music even started.
Doors opened at 7pm, and within minutes the empty room transformed into a packed room. It quickly became a find your spot and stay there kind of night, with little room to move once you were in place. It is hard to imagine what the scene would have looked like had the show remained at Paradise Rock Club. Not long after tickets went on sale, the band moved the venue to Big Night Live, a necessary shift given the immediate demand. By the time the lights dimmed, the room was already at capacity, buzzing with anticipation and fully locked in for the night ahead.
The night opened with The Verve Pipe, whose breakthrough 1996 album Villains set the foundation for a wave of late-90s nostalgia that the crowd immediately leaned into. After building momentum through the early 90s, it’s that era of music that continues to define their connection with fans.
Opening with “Photograph,” The Verve Pipe wasted no time pulling the crowd into a wave of late ’90s nostalgia. Across an eight-song set, the band leaned heavily into material from platinum album Villains, featuring “Villains,” “Cup of Tea,” and, of course, “The Freshman,”
“The Freshman” dominated the airwaves in the ’90s. With its music video in heavy rotation on MTV, the song climbed into the Billboard Top 10, the song became a defining anthem for a generation navigating high school and college. As the opening notes rang out across Big Night Live, the crowd was instantly transported back to 1997. Voices throughout the room swelled to meet Brian Vander Ark’s before eventually taking over the song entirely. Nearly 2,000 voices sang in unison, channeling days long gone but still close enough to feel like yesterday. It was a powerful, magical moment that set the tone for the night.
Video From: The Verve Pipe
The band has remained active since the release of Villains, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary on March 26. Since that breakthrough album, they have gone on to release six studio albums, continuing to evolve while staying rooted in the sound that first put them on the map.
The set leaned into that core alternative rock, melodic sound of the late ’90s and early 2000s, pulling “Colorful” and “Medicate Myself” from their 2001 album Underneath, along with “Dust” from their most recent release Reconciled.
“Dust” fit seamlessly into the tone the band established throughout the night. Their newest album, Reconciled, released in July 2025, brings both the band and its fans back to those ’90s alternative rock roots while layering in a modern edge.
“Augustine,” the opening track on the album, leans fully into that nostalgia. Its upbeat riffs throw you right back to driving down the interstate in a Chevy Cavalier or Ford Escort, windows down, heading to meet your friends at the mall for the afternoon. From the moment you hit play, those memories come rushing back. The entire album becomes a journey through the late ’90s and early 2000s, the kind that fills your soul and stays with you long after it ends.
Video From: The Verve Pipe
If a night of The Verve Pipe nostalgia wasn’t enough to keep you engaged, the band closed with Black Hole Sun off Superunknown. It became another moment where the entire venue sang in unison, a song so ingrained in our minds and so iconic to that era of music. A closing moment that proved these songs aren’t just remembered, they’re still lived in, night after night.
THE VERVE PIPE SETLIST
1.Photograph
2. Cup of Tea
3. Dust
4.Villains
5. Colorful
6. Medicate Myself
7. The Freshman
8. Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden)
Photos By: Kerri Nelson Media
Soon the clock struck 9 and the monitors behind Jason Pierce’s drums lit up to reveal 30 years of memories of the band’s story. From video of tours gone by to music videos and interviews, it was a love letter to the longevity of the band and the fans who have stood behind them for over three decades. If it was any hint at how the Our Lady Peace 30th Anniversary tour was going to go down, the crowd was in for an incredible night.
The room was already buzzing with excitement, packed with fans ready for what was about to unfold. Raine Maida (vocals) had to make the tough decision to reschedule a few shows due to vocal issues, with rest being necessary to keep the tour moving forward. Fans were elated knowing he had gotten the all clear from doctors the night before, and that energy carried into the room.
The show kicked off with “Sound the Alarm” off OLP30: Volume One, the perfect opening for a night that would take fans through a 18-song time capsule of a career spanning over 30 years. The track blends the early tones of Naveed and Clumsy, setting the stage for what was to come.
Video By: Our Lady Peace
So it was no surprise they rolled right into “Superman’s Dead” off the 1997 platinum album Clumsy. The reaction was instant. The song has been ingrained not only in diehard Our Lady Peace fans, but also in casual listeners. It’s uniquely OLP, capturing the core of an album built on undertones of introspection and unease, delivered through an alternative rock lens with a carnival-like edge. It’s the kind of record that works on multiple levels, whether you’re just taking in the music or digging into the layers behind it. Paired with Maida’s vocals, it stands as a defining piece of the band’s catalog.
Video By: Our Lady Peace
The band continued to move seamlessly through the different eras of Our Lady Peace, highlighting “Innocent” from their 2002, more radio-driven album Gravity. They followed that with “One Man Army” and “Is Anybody Home?” off 1999’s Happiness… Is Not a Fish You Can Catch.
Raine Maida took a moment between songs to reflect on the longevity of the band and what comes with it. After decades on the road, he shared how those years give you space to look back on the moments that shaped not just the music, but the people behind it.
He reflected on how, with time, you begin to understand just how fragile life can be, and how quickly things can change. That perspective became real for the band during the Spiritual Machines era, when bassist Duncan Coutts faced a cancer scare just as they were preparing to tour and film the video for “Life.”
Maida explained that the band was ready to drop everything to support him, but Coutts insisted they move forward. The video was filmed in a dusty warehouse, carrying an entirely different emotional weight than originally intended. Shortly after, Coutts went straight into surgery. He recovered, but the experience permanently reshaped how the band connects to “Life.”
Video By: Our Lady Peace
The night continued with “Paper Moon” off 2009’s Burn Burn, an album recorded in Raine Maida’s home and produced by the frontman himself. They followed it up with “Drop Me In The Water” from 2018’s Somethingness and “Not Enough” off Gravity.
From there, Maida paused once again to connect with the crowd, first checking in on the Celtics score, a running thread throughout the night, joking that he could wait until the game was over for the diehard Boston fans who chose the show over the court. From there, he shifted into reflecting on the evolution of Spiritual Machines. In a time where AI is no longer theoretical but part of everyday life, he pointed to the influence behind the album, The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil, one of the leading futurists of our time, with ties to Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
When the band released Spiritual Machines in 2000, the ideas Kurzweil explored felt futuristic, almost distant. Concepts like driverless cars, cochlear implants restoring hearing, and artificial intelligence shaping daily life were enough to spark curiosity and imagination.
To bring that vision into the album, the band invited Kurzweil to Toronto to record spoken excerpts from the book, weaving them throughout the record as interludes that tied the concept together.
Twenty-six years later, those ideas no longer feel like speculation. They feel like a mirror of the world we are living in now. With growing concerns about how much is too much AI, and what that means for our future and our jobs, Maida acknowledged the reality we are all facing.
But he also made it clear that AI can never replicate what was happening inside that venue. It cannot recreate the communal feeling of being in a room together, experiencing connection, energy, and shared emotion. No politics, no outside noise, just music and a moment of escape. The beauty of art in its purest form.
No matter how far technology advances, that human connection, that feeling, will always exist. It cannot be replaced.
It was a poignant moment in the set, one that seamlessly led into “In Repair.”
Video By: Our Lady Peace
The band played an epic cover of “Hail, Hail” by Pearl Jam before launching into “4am”, “Somewhere Out There” and “Clumsy,” which turned into a full-on singalong with 2000 fans has waving their hands, that solidified everything Maida spoke about earlier in the night. AI can do a lot of things, but it cannot take away the magic and unity a crowd feels in a moment like this, watching a band tied to countless memories that helped define their lives. These songs are connected to laughter with friends, to the moments that carried you through the hardest times, and to the realization that the person next to you is feeling it just as deeply. It’s powerful. It’s something the soul holds onto for the days you need it most. It’s the passion in Maida’s vocal range and the soaring guitar work of Steve Mazur that pull you in and refuse to let go.
Video By: Our Lady Peace
The encore continued that balance, reaching across the band’s catalog while staying rooted in everything Maida had spoken about throughout the night. He reflected on meeting so many fans over the years and hearing their stories, reinforcing the human connection that lives inside these songs. That connection came full circle as he dedicated “Temporary Healing” off 2021’s Spiritual Machines II to a fan in the crowd, a moment that felt deeply personal in a room filled with thousands.
They continued with “Whatever (Redux),” “Automatic Flowers” off Clumsy, and closed the night with “Starseed” off Naveed, bringing it back to where it all began.
There wasn’t a single person in the crowd who walked away anything less than fulfilled, having experienced something real. Sure, most would take a five-hour set to hear the entire catalog, and there’s always that lingering hope to catch the piano stripped-down version of “Julia,” the one we downloaded off Audiogalaxy when we were 12, the one we’d probably give up our camera to hear live. With a stop at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT on the horizon, and the opportunity to take it in as a fan, that hope is still very much alive. But no matter the setlist, there’s no walking away disappointed. The depth of the discography and the weight of the songs are more than enough.
Our Lady Peace continues the first leg of their 30th Anniversary tour through April 7, wrapping in Cincinnati, Ohio. After a short break, they return for a second leg beginning June 18 in Highland, California, running through June 24 in Seattle, Washington, with additional festival appearances across the U.S. and Canada. There are plenty of opportunities to catch them in 2026, and if you haven’t yet, they are a must-see live act.
OUR LADY PEACE SETLIST:
1. Sound The Alarm
2. Supermans Dead
3. Innocent
4. One Man Army
5 Is Anybody Home?
6. Life.
7. Paper Mood
8. Drop Me In The Water
9. Not Enough
10. In Repair
11. Hail, Hail (Pearl Jam Cover)
12. 4AM
13. Somewhere Out
14. Clumsy
ENCORE
15. Temporary Healing
16. Whatever (Redux)
17. Automatic Flowers
18. Starseed
Photos By: Kerri Nelson Media
OUR LADY PEACE
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THE VERVE PIPE
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BIG NIGHT LIVE
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