Peepshow tour

The Peepshow tour was a music tour of the United States by Barenaked Ladies from October 21 to November 29, 2003, in support of their album Everything to Everyone. It included 26 shows in 26 cities. The tour was a significant departure from the traditional structure of the band's concerts, and was the start of a trend among their tours. The tour was followed immediately on December 1 by a series of holiday-themed shows not considered part of this tour.

Notability

The tour was notable for a variety of aspects.

Two sets + Q&A

The band played two sets with an intermission, and had no opening act (sometimes joking during the second set about the "opening act" (their own first set)). This afforded the band an abundance of time relative to their traditional one-set concerts. While a normal show would include approximately 20 songs, the Peepshow concerts included as many as 29 songs at one show, with most shows having 27 or 28 (five shows had only 25 or 26 songs). The shows also included a 15-20 minute question-and-answer period in which the band would respond to several questions posed by randomly chosen audience members, which sometimes resulted in extra songs or parts of songs being played. The shows still included many of the band's trademark banters and improv raps.

Song selection

Another notable feature of the tour was the song selection: one of the main reasons the band wanted the extra time at their shows was to showcase their new album, Everything to Everyone. At every show on the tour, the band played every song on the album (which itself was a long album at 14 songs plus the bonus track, "Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!").

Set list variety

Over the course of the tour, the band successfully endeavoured to perform every song they released (qualified as only including songs released on their then six original-material studio albums (from Gordon to Everything to Everyone) plus Disc One. BNL also performed a number of b-sides, plus demos they had recorded. The band found that they enjoyed this unique format, which ultimately consisted of shuffled setlists mixed with old songs rarely performed in a live setting.

Preceding this tour, the band would typically conduct an entire tour with one static setlist, or two or three alternating setlists. This tour led to a marked increase in the variety of songs and changing setlists from show-to-show on future tours, as well as the playing of unreleased and rare songs on future tours like the 2004 Au Naturale summer tour. Setlists for tours following the Peepshow typically became a list of blank slots around a few fixed songs which were filled in nightly with different songs to create unique set lists every night. The band has credited their crew at the time with being familiar enough with their material to be able to accommodate songs without significant preparation such as in lighting or sound settings.

Acoustic set

The Peepshow tour was also the first occurrence of a performance style in which the band plays acoustic instruments while standing centre-stage around one ambient microphone, which opened the tour's second sets. This has become a standard part of most Barenaked Ladies shows; They have done some smaller shows and appearances entirely in this style.

Venue size

BNL brought the Peepshow to theatres around the United States which housed approximately 2,000-6,000 people. This was a significantly smaller scale than the band's preceding tours which took place at larger arena venues. This was especially notable since it was the band's first tour in support of a new album, Everything to Everyone. It was generally perceived that the tour was designed for the band's biggest fans based on the other aforementioned unique aspects. The tour was followed up with a more traditional and widespread arena promotional tour called the "(Barenaked Ladies Play) Everywhere For Everyone tour".

Song selection

The tour took a few shows to find the right feel, and the structure was not concrete. As such, the setlist structure was not identical for the entire tour. Every night, the band played:

While the order of the one-per-album tracks was fairly steady, there were gaps. For example, when the band felt they needed more rehearsal at a song they had not played in a while, they would hold off until the rough edges were ironed out. They put some songs off for a few shows, and played another song from the same album in that slot.

There was always at least one song from each of the five studio albums up to Maroon in the setlist. When a single that was played every night came up in the rotation, it was taken as both the single and the song from that album.

A notable fact about this tour was that it was one of the only Barenaked Ladies tours ever not to play "If I Had $1000000" every show; it was played in full only twice.

Recording

The entire tour was recorded for multi-track audio by the band, like future tours were. However, they did not begin mixing and selling the shows online until the Everywhere For Everyone tour. The band once considered using these recordings to construct live versions of their first six albums to sell to fans, but this never materialized. The band still has these recordings and could conceivably use them in the future.

Setlist

Setlists varied, particularly in the first few shows. A typical setlist would be similar to this:

Set 1
  1. Testing 1,2,3
  2. Maybe Katie
  3. Celebrity
  4. rotated song
  5. Next Time
  6. Unfinished
  7. Aluminum
  8. rotated song
  9. Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!
  10. War On Drugs (with introduction/explanation from Steven Page)
  11. Upside Down
  12. Q&A Segment
  13. rotated song
Set 2
  1. Road Runner (acoustic)
  2. rotated song (acoustic)
  3. For You (acoustic)
  4. One Week (acoustic)
  5. Another Postcard
  6. rotated song
  7. Take It Outside
  8. rotated song
  9. Second Best
  10. rotated song
  11. The Old Apartment
  12. Shopping
  13. Have You Seen My Love (first encore)
  14. Brian Wilson (first encore)
  15. Pinch Me (second encore)

Tour dates

Date City Country Venue
October 21, 2003 Boston United States Orpheum Theatre
October 22, 2003 New York City Hammerstein Ballroom
October 25, 2003 Chicago Riviera Theatre
October 26, 2003 Detroit State Theatre
October 28, 2003 Minneapolis Orpheum Theatre
October 29, 2003 Milwaukee Riverside Theatre
October 30, 2003 St. Louis American Theatre
November 1, 2003 Cleveland State Theatre
November 2, 2003 Indianapolis Murat Theatre
November 4, 2003 Grand Rapids DeVos Hall
November 5, 2003 Columbus Wexner Mershon Auditorium
November 6, 2003 Cincinnati Taft Theatre
November 8, 2003 Upper Darby Tower Theater
November 10, 2003 Washington, D.C. DAR Constitution Hall
November 11, 2003 Albany Palace Theatre
November 12, 2003 Rochester Rochester Auditorium Theatre
November 13, 2003 Hartford The Bushnell
November 16, 2003 Dallas McFarlin Memorial Auditorium
November 17, 2003 Houston Verizon Wireless Theatre
November 20, 2003 Los Angeles The Wiltern
November 21, 2003 Berkeley Berkeley Community Theatre
November 23, 2003 Seattle Marion Oliver McCaw Hall
November 24, 2003 Spokane Opera House
November 25, 2003 Portland Arlene Schitzer Hall
November 28, 2003 Denver Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre
November 29, 2003 Kansas City Uptown Theatre

External links

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