The Orono community gathered together to watch Canadian rock musician Steven Page play live at the University of Maine’s Collins Center for the Arts on April 17. This is the Steven Page Trio’s sixth live performance for their Spring 2025 tour, as well serving as the Collins Center’s last performance of the 2024-25 Maine Stage season, capping it off with a bang.
As a multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter whose career has spanned over three decades, Page co-founded the Ontario rock band, “Barenaked Ladies,” in 1988, iconic for their infectiously fun vocals and catchy lyrics. After leaving the band in 2009, Page pursued a full solo career, having released five albums including, “Page One” in 2010, “Heal Thyself: Pt. 1: Instinct” in 2016 and his newest album, “Excelsior,” in 2022.
The show also served as Page’s return to Orono for the first time since November 2015, as Page performed “Art of Time Ensemble: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” for the Collins Center, a performance which saw the reimagining of the iconic Beatles album.
On stage, Page was accompanied by Kevin Fox on the cello as well as the co-founder of Vancouver based rock band, “Odds,” Craig Northey, on electric guitar. Northey is a long time collaborator with Page, as the two musicians met back in 1992 when the Barenaked Ladies and the Odds were touring at the same time, as well as the two having previously played at the Collins Center’s Sgt. Pepper performance from over a decade prior.
The show played an extensive backlog of catchy and high-energy pop rock, folk rock and alt rock, both from the Barenaked Ladies and Page’s solo work, as the lead musician switched between acoustic guitar and piano for each specific song. The show was also interspersed with comedic banter between the trio.
Starting off the show was Page’s rendition of the Barenaked Ladies track “It’s All Been Done” off the 1998 album “Stunt,” starting things off smoothly with its mix of acoustic beats and pop chorus, followed up by Steven Page’s “A New Shore” which was given a sweeping electric guitar leadup for its live performance, followed by a rendition of Barenaked Ladies’ “Jane.”
In between songs in their setlist, the trio would occasionally make tongue-in-cheek remarks about contemporary or relatable topics, of which included Page’s making a joke about his hazy memory during the COVID-19 pandemic, or how Page was planning to send Northey and Fox to the moon to meet with Katy Perry, all of which got great reactions from the audience.
One of tracks on the setlist included “The Golden Age of Doubling Down” off of “Excelsior” which is a song that commentates on the pessimistic state of social media in a post-pandemic world, and how Page jokingly reminisces about how both online and offline discourse was more “civilized” years prior. It’s a rather decent folk song featuring a harmonica lead instrumental and upbeat chorus, coupled with lyrics such as “We′re in crazy town / Run by circus clowns.”
Other noteworthy tracks include the live rendition of Page’s “Where Do You Stand?” as well as the Barenaked Ladies’ slow and melodic “What a Good Boy” and the nostalgic and catchy “Alternative Girlfriend.” One especially memorable moment came at the end of the song “Tonight Is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel” where Page playfully parodied the actions of an orchestral conductor as the song seemingly halted, only to belt out one last opera high note as the audience soon erupted in applause.
Clocking in at two hours, the show had plenty of variety in song choices, coupled with bits of comedic banter that never felt too stale or played out. All in all, Steven Page’s return to the Collins Center was an incredibly solid send off to the Maine Stage season, showcasing a mix of catchy folk rock tunes and showstopping melodies from both Page’s solo career and the Barenaked Ladies catalog.