Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday. Sign up for our free newsletter.

When you think of OK Go, you probably think of treadmills. 

The band created one of the first-ever viral music videos with a carefully choreographed aerobic routine set to “Here It Goes Again” that netted the four-piece a Grammy in 2007. Since then, OK Go has been a remarkably consistent presence on YouTube, pairing endlessly catchy songs with charmingly bananas premises: a Rube Goldberg machine, a zero-G flight, a car stunt-driven through a musical assault course, a crew of dancing rescue dogs…

Obviously, none of those things made it onstage to the Commodore, where OK Go’s two-night stand this weekend represented its first Vancouver shows in a decade. Instead, they had lots of whimsy—and lots of confetti. 

Opening up the Sunday night show was B.C.’s own Steve Bays. The musician, who’s played with Hot Hot Heat, Mounties, Fur Trade, and Left Field Messiah, and helped produce even more artists, played his first-ever solo show at the Commodore. Each of the musicians on-stage was a member of a different band, which might explain why they were all dressed like they were going to different functions. 

While it may have been Bays’ debut under his own name, his ease with performing was evident as he made his way through a set that featured both his new solo works and songs from previous projects, all played with a polished sheen that nodded to baroque pop and indie Brit-rock. The vocal effect on his microphone persisted as he chatted between songs, making him sound like he was underwater the whole time.

Songs “Check Please” and “Goth Babysitter” did a good job of demonstrating his thematic range: the former being about the emotional disconnect between repressed boomer parents and their adult children, and the latter being about having a crush on your goth babysitter. Bays’ family also got a shout-out: his in-laws made him the banner he showcased on stage, while his one-year-old apparently loves OK Go but couldn’t be in attendance because she was “wasted or high or something”. Classic kid stuff! 

When OK Go bounded onto the stage, the musicians immediately made their intentions clear. Performing without any additional members or pre-recorded extras, the Los Angeles pop-rockers began the night with “This Too Shall Pass”. Frontman Damian Kulash joyfully leapt into the audience during the bridge, spinning in circles to encourage everyone to join in on the refrain of “let it go, this too shall pass” as confetti shot from cannons either side of the stage. 

Old songs, like the grunge-tinged “Get Over It”, mixed in seamlessly with newer tracks from the band’s fifth album, the psych-pop And the Adjacent Possible, which was released earlier this year. After playing a couple of new songs, Kulash did a playful merch ad, showing off the vinyl’s pop-up packaging before asking “Any questions?” It’s a genuine question, and highlighted one of the band’s strengths: their ability to keep an audience entertained, no matter what.

It turns out that the crowd most certainly did have questions, which Kulash answered with a mix of ribbing and genuine amusement. A particularly wholesome compliment to the crew caught him off-guard: “We’re invested in keeping our shows snarky and sarcastic, and you’ve fucked that up.” The next question? “What’s your favourite Seinfeld episode?” (They’re not really Seinfeld guys.) A woman asked why her ex-boyfriend had told her to stand in the centre of the room. “We drop a piano from the ceiling,” Kulash deadpans. “Fourteen people die every night.”

“Shooting the Moon” proved that confetti wasn’t the only stunt, as all four members of OK Go left their instruments to congregate around a white table to perform a handbell-only version of the track. And then, explicitly to distract from the time taken to tidy away the set-up, Kulash headed to a platform in the centre of the floor to perform an acoustic take on the melancholy “This Is How It Ends”. (He ended up finding the woman who mentioned her ex-boyfriend, and spent a while getting into her love life.)

That was followed by the one-two punch of “Needing/Getting” and “Obsessions”—the latter track delayed because the double-bell was lost under a pile of confetti. “Who would do that?” Kulash asks, as multi-talented guitarist/keyboardist/second bassist/percussionist Andy Ross had to blow paper off his instruments almost every song. 

As the set neared its end, Ross had technical difficulties. Luckily, the band had a bit prepared for this too: Kulash and bassist Tim Nordwind launched into an a cappella rendition of “Confrontation” from Les Miserables. It was very fun—and perhaps a sign more artists should memorize classic musicals in case they need a quick interlude. 

The main set rumbled to a close with—what else?—”Here It Goes Again”, before the band returned for an encore. A cover of the La’s “There She Goes Again” rolled into recent single “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill”, before the night finished off with “The One Moment”. There was more singing along; more cheering; and yes, more confetti. 

For a band ostensibly dedicated to keeping shows “snarky and sarcastic”, the energy was pure whimsy. It was impossible to wipe the smile off your face afterwards; almost as impossible as getting the confetti out of every nook and cranny of your clothes.