Considering the circumstances, Our Lady Peace's performance at the House of Blues in Hollywood was pretty amazing. They hadn't done a show in Los Angeles since they came through with Creed and Oleander well over a year and a half ago. They don't receive any radio support in Los Angeles. None of the major LA area publications had done much of anything on the band in quite some time.

Yet there they were - a house full of OLP fans, singing along to every word and packing in the House of Blues. It shows the true impact of a band on their fans when they go so far and show that level of commitment. Even without the media support they deserve, OLP, through quality music and rigorous touring, have built a strong fan base outside of their native Canada, where they are bona fide stars. The sheer strength of their live show easily made converts of those that were there are guests and weren't familiar with OLP live.

Our Lady Peace's new album received it's inspiration and title from Ray Kurzweil's book Spiritual Machines, which deals with the concept of man and machine becoming so similar that man basically doesn't notice when machines take over. As OLP's lead signer Raine Maida mentioned, it's quite similar to the movie AI which has recently hit theatres. "I hear it sucks," Maida then told the crowd, to an enthusiastic response.

What surely didn't suck was OLP's electric and impassioned performance. Hitting the stage to "Right Behind You," the current single from the new record, Maida, along with bassist Duncan Coutts (who looks like a buffed-out, tall David Spade), drummer Jeremy Taggart and guitarist Mike Turner, got the crowd fired up fast. Moving from there into the album's first single, "Life," and then "Are You Sad?," OLP showed why Spiritual Machines is the band's best release to date.

From there Maida and his distinctive vocals took the crowd on to some of their older material. OLP tore through "Superman's Dead," which is one the few OLP tracks that has received any radio play in the U.S., and "Automatic Flowers," both from their 1997 release Clumsy. The also delivered a blistering rendition of "One Man Army" from 1999's Happiness…Is Not A Fish You Can Catch. In the end, OLP showed that while radio in America has not been kind to them, the fans of great alternative rock don't need radio to tell them what's good. The HOB was nearly full for good reason, and by most accounts, this wasn't the standard music industry crowd that you find at most local shows, as Raine made note of, commenting, "This isn't like most LA rock shows!"