Editor's Note: our reviewers arrived too late to catch the set by Chicago's OK GO. However, we've seen them a few times around town lately and rather liked them. If you read this, OK GO, send us something to review.

It isn't Splendid's policy to be outright negative about a band (other than Pedro the Lion -- Ed.), but Splendid's Chicago crew has found a band worthy of our scorn. Ladies and gentlemen, may we introduce Canada's Flashing Lights, openers for Sloan at a recent Chicago show.

It wasn't so much the Flashing Lights' music that was bad -- though it wasn't particularly good -- but rather the band's on-stage demeanor that made your reviewers want to spit up their perfectly good dinners. The band seemed to think that acting like The Animals or early-period Who might make them sound like those bands as well. From the band members' wardrobes to their Rickenbacher-toting windmill jumps across the stage, just about every cliché was pulled out in support of bad lyrics and even worse singing. Canada and the world should fear a crowd goaded into chanting "Flashing Lights! Flashing Lights!". Perhaps there's hope to be found in the fact that only half of the Chicago audience members were duped into supporting the Flashing Lights' schlock-rock sideshow.

Sloan also took the stage with the crowd chanting their name, but that's where the similarities between the Flashing Lights and the night's headliners end. Sloan, a band who have been writing and touring together for the better part of the 90's, have slowly become one of Canada's most celebrated musical exports. Sloan know that they are "that good", so they don't feel the need to act like junior rock stars in order to win over the crowd. Sloan just needs to play. To put it another way, certain Splendid staff members would gladly give up a lung or a kidney if that was the only way to gain access to a Sloan performance (This, of course, is a bit selfish, as how many times has a guy in the middle of renal failure or lung shutdown totally spoiled a show for you by collapsing and flopping around all over the floor during your favorite song? Yeah, plenty of times for me, too. -- Ed.).

After a quick hello, Sloan jumped into "Friendship", one of the finest tracks from their new album, Between the Bridges. The Sloan sound is there -- the 3 part harmonies, the jarring hook, the slightly rueful lyrics. And the Sloan performance is there -- tight backbeat, spot-on guitars and a natural energy unmatched by most bands. When Chris Murphy leans into the microphone, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, and lets out a whooping scream, he seems overjoyed to be playing -- he's not just goosing the audience.

With the exception of Patrick Pentland, who stuck to his guitar for the entire evening, the other Sloaners swapped instruments throughout the set, alternating between drums, bass and keyboard while leading the audience through a tour of the new album and their more recent back catalogue. The night was heavy with songs from Sloan's last two studio albums, Between the Bridges and Navy Blues. A wonderful version of "Coax me" was the only pre-1996 Sloan song to make the set list for the night. Having just ended a back catalogue-intensive world tour in February (which culminated in the release of a double live album, 4 Nights at the Palais Royale, earlier this year), Sloan seems set on moving forward with the set lists for their shows -- and that certainly isn't a bad thing. Songs like "Sinking Ships" and "Iggy & Angus" from Navy Blues, and "So Beyond Me" and "Take Good Care of the Poor Boy" from the new album sound fantastic live, as if Sloan has been given a divine right to rock. That right to rock, if not already apparent to the slowest members of the audience, was indelibly stamped into the crowd's collective subconscious with the rousing, full-throttle rock of set closer "Money City Maniacs."

So what if Jason and Jason had a rather annoying couple, locked at the lips, bumping into them the entire night? So what if we had to endure the torture that was The Flashing Lights? We had Sloan, damn it. Sloan the Great. Sloan the Magnificent. Sloan the rock-your-ass-off, get-you-screaming/singing-every-lyric, blissed-out-when-you-leave-the-venue-and-drive-home-to-bed-at-2:00-in-the-morning. To hell with George W. Bush and Al Gore, Sloan for President! (Pity they'd have to be U.S. citizens... - Ed.)

This was Jason Broccardo's last show for a while, as he and his wife are expecting their first child...well, right about now, really. Jason Jackowiak has no such troubles -- he didn't get anyone pregnant, so he gets to see Stereolab.