Despite the fact that it was the 115th performance of a 116-show tour for their third album, "Born on a Pirate Ship," Canadian popsters Barenaked Ladies literally rocked the house on Monday night at EMU's Pease Auditorium, shaking the floor and shaking up the audience.
After opening band Geggy Tah warmed up the crowd with their wild drumbeats and hit song "Whoever You Are," the crowd was on its feet and screaming for the Ladies. People danced in their seats even before the group arrived on stage, as they listened to showtunes from "Annie," "The Wizard of Oz" and other Marvin Hamlisch goodies. When the Ladies did arrive, though, the crowd went wild, shrieking at the on-stage antics of lead vocalist Steven Page and guitarist Ed Robertson throughout the first three songs.
Page, with his glasses and slightly over-sized frame, looks an unlikely rock 'n' roll front man, but nevertheless gave an amazing show. Belting out his throaty, delicious vocals, and kneeling in front of the crowd to screech to a high note during "Box Set," on stage Page exhibited none of the slightly shy airs he gave off in a pre-show interview with The Michigan Daily.
As he sat underneath a shady tree on the EMU campus, Page said eight years after they started, the Ladies have evolved into something more serious than the members originally aimed for.
"Eight years ago, it was just myself and Ed, the guitar player," Page said. "It was just two of us and it was very much a lark. It wasn't something we took seriously, because we didn't have anything riding on it. The group has grown since then into a five-piece and it's also become something that we do for a living. When you have to rely on it to pay the bills, you just at the same time try not to lose sight of the fact that you do it because you like making music."
Monday's show definitely made clear the fact that the Ladies do love making music. Between bassist Jim Creeggan happily plucking away, new Ladies' keyboardist Kevin Hearn bobbing up and down, and hearing drummer Tyler Stewart's pounding out his driving beats and yelling "Ypsilanti in the mothafuckin' house!" it was impossible not to tap your foot or sing along, laughing all the while.
Some of the humor came from the Ladies' impromptu material, ranging from a rap by Robertson and Page about the phallic-looking Ypsi water tower to their creative and simultaneous homage to both video games and Michigan's own Ted Nugent, as they sang "PacMan Fever" to the tune of "Cat Scratch Fever." Audience members also cheered for the Ladies' delightfully inventive lyrics on "Be My Yoko Ono," off their first album, "Gordon," in which they make fun of the screechy-voiced bane of the Beatles.
Page said the lyrics he's penned are directly linked to his personality. "I guess I have the mind of a fiction writer," he said. "That's the way I approach writing lyrics, as if I was writing a short story, and I try and give it the same kind of layout and effect a short story has. Hopefully each one is of a different genre of writing, because I think musically each song is different from the next."
The EMU crowd enjoyed the harmony-laden, folky-pop anthems the Ladies put forth, even though the group wasn't naked. Although Page said some colleges have objected to the group's name before, saying it needlessly objectifies women, there was no trace of that sort of political correctness at the show, as one frat boy even threw an inflatable woman on stage.
Page said the name isn't something the group would choose now, adding that when he and Robertson were 17, the name fit. "It's something we used to say when we were eight or nine years old. Being in a band reminded us of ... the kind of feeling we were doing something we weren't supposed to be doing and we didn't really know why we weren't supposed to be doing it."
The Ladies kept up the energetic, sugar-high atmosphere throughout the show, with only a few downbeat songs that let people sit down to breathe, with only couples standing up to dance. One of the most intense points of performance was when Creeggan, who looked like a skinnier version of comedian Carrot Top, took the audience on a wild ride with "I Live With It Every Day." Using a bow on the electric bass, he played high and low, leaving everyone's ear drums buzzing as he led into the rest of the song.
And of course, in the end, after "Maybe You Can Drive" favorites, "Jane," "Intermittently" and a funky syncopated version of "Life, In A Nutshell," the Ladies let it all loose on "If I Had $1,000,000." With audience members throwing open boxes of Kraft Dinner, or Macaroni and Cheese, as we Americans call it, to mirror the lyrics of the song, the Ladies let it all hang out, with acoustic guitars, brilliant harmonies and quirky lyrics shining in the bright lights.
Once the cheese-dust cleared, the Toronto natives returned to the stage for two encores with even more energy and creativity than before. And of course, they reminded the audience before they left that to relive the glory they only need wait until Nov. 19 for their new live album to hit record stores. If that's still not enough, just head over to Pease Auditorium and listen - the walls may still be echoing.
This is a bunch of fully-clothed men!