Our Lady Peace hits Oshawa on 30th anniversary tour

Canadian rock icons Our Lady Peace are set to hit Oshawa’s Tribute Communities Centre as part of their 30th-anniversary tour.

Tribute announced the show on Sept. 25 featuring both Our Lady Peace and Collective Soul, a Georgia-based rock group also celebrating their thirtieth. The show marks a triumphant return for OLP after starting out playing small gigs in Oshawa in the early 90s.

The OLP30 tour is set to kick off in February in Calgary and hit 15 shows across the country by mid-March. The tour includes stops major cities like Edmonton, Ottawa, and Halifax “as they revisit their biggest hits and introduce new tracks.”

The band will reach Oshawa Tribute Communities on March 5 and the curtain will rise on the show at 7 p.m.

“This tour will be a powerful tribute to the band’s three-decade legacy and an unforgettable experience for fans both old and new,” wrote the Tribute Centre. “Each performance will celebrate the band’s evolution while delivering an energetic, one-of-a-kind show.”

Tickets go on sale on Oct. 3, ranging from $65 to $105.

About the Band

Guitarist Mike Turner placed an ad in a Toronto newspaper in 1991 looking for musicians. Singer Micheal Maida (now better known as Raine Maida) was the first to join Turner, forming a band under the name As If. 

After a line-up shuffle the band was renamed Our Lady Peace and began to write more original music. They put together a music video and soon joined Sony. Their first album Naveed followed in 1993 and was a massive hit.

They recorded the album in a Mississauga studio after only playing a few shows with the current line-up. The band rushed through production, under Arnold Lanni hoping to capitalize on the immediate chemistry the members felt working together.

Released in 1994 Naveed was slow to build sales momentum at first but was critically acclaimed as a stand-out amid the peak of Grunge and Alternative music. Many consider 1994 a banner year for music with Alice in Chains, Beastie Boys, Beck, Blur, Green Day, Hole, Jeff Buckley, Korn, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Oasis, Offspring, Pearl Jam, Rancid, Rollins Band, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and Weezer all releasing seminal albums.

Even amid this esteemed company, Our Lady Peace stood out. Their debut went quadruple platinum in Canada even before its American release. It caught the attention of Van Halen, then readying a tour in support of their album Balance. Our Lady Peace opened for Van Halen, then Page and Plant (formerly of Led Zeppelin), and Alanis Morissette.

Additionally, a single from Naveed was featured in the 1997 actioner Armageddon alongside Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Patty Smyth and ZZ Top.

Soon afterward, the band began work on their second record Clumsy. Their sophomore album proved their greatest success. For Clumsy, Our Lady Peace connected with Winnepeg-born producer Bob Rock, best known for his work with Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Motley Crue, and the Tragically Hip.

The band worked a carnival atmosphere into Clumsy and Maida established his trademark falsetto. The record debuted at number one on the Canadian charts and quickly reached platinum in Canada and the United States. It’s since been ranked among the greatest Canadian albums of all time.

During production, the group was also asked to cover The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” for the cult horror film The Craft. 

Following a college tour and a stint opening for the Rolling Stones, Our Lady Peace returned to the studio to record Happiness…is a Fish You Cannot Catch. The band strove to reinvent their sound after accusations they sounded derivative during their sojourn in the United States.

So they brought in former Blue Man Group performer Jamie Edwards to add to their live shows and expand the group’s sonic repertoire. The band’s reinvention received a sharply divided reception. Some praised the band’s expanded sound, but others criticized the tone as dour and overly experimental.

Our Lady Peace fired back the next year with Spiritual Machines, an even larger tonal change for the band. Inspired by futurist Ray Kurzweil, the album features a more stripped down, acoustic sound.

It also marked the end of the band’s early stage. It was the last album Lanni produced for the band, the last to feature Maida’s high falsetto and the last to fully feature founding guitarist Turner. It was an acclaimed critical success but struggled in sales.

Turner left the band half way through production on the next album Gravity, leaving Maida the only founding member of the group. While OurLady Peace wanted Lanni back to produce, he was busy with Simple Plan debut. As such the band connected with Rock, who was on the outs with Metallica at the time.

Gravity recieved the opposite response compared to Spiritual Machines. It sold gangbusters, debuting at #2 on Canadian charts, but was not well-received critically. It also marked a turning point for the band with some accusing them of selling out. Thier fanbase remains split over which era was better.

Next came the troubled production of Healthy in Paranoid Times, which tooks the band well over 1,000 days in studio and resulted in 43 songs each with various takes. The struggle to finish the record almost ended the band with every member quitting at least once.

Taking cues from Rock’s work on Metallica’s St. Anger, Our Lady Peace aimed for a stripped down raw sounds on Healthy. The new sounds continued to recieve a polarized reception. Some critics hailed Healthy as the band’s greatest work, while others panned it as their worst.

Maida took over production of their next album, Burn, Burn, which returned Our Lady Peace to their original Naveed sound. The band’s releases grew more spread out at this point as they continued to shake up their style.

In 2021, they released their lastest record Spiritual Machines 2, a direct sequel to their 2000 hit. Turner rejoined the band as a “special guest” after nearly 20 years for the effort. Its lead single “Stop Making Stupid People Famous” features Pussy Riot, a Russian punk band whose members have been jailed for protesting Vladamir Putin’s regime.

To mark the new 30th anniversary tour, the band has released a new single “Sound the Alarm” on Sept. 20, the first track of the “OLP30 Era.”