The last time Hedley came to town, their show was disrupted by a power outage.
But the Juno-nominees electrified the thousands at CN Centre this time around, lighting up the Prince George audience with a show that was both playful and earnest.
The band dropping into P.G. while on their Shipwrecked tour in support of the 2011 release Storms, the group's fourth album.
The show stayed true to the waterlogged theme, kicking off with a video depicting the four band members - singer Jacob Hoggard, guitarist (and Prince George-native) Dave Rosin, bassist Tommy Mac and drummer Chris Crippin - getting tossed through choppy seas before washing up on shore and walking their way to Prince George.
Kicking off with a blistering medley of early-career singles 321, On My Own and She's So Sorry, the Vancouver-based quartet set the tone for an energetic and high-energy romp before launching into their new album's opening track, One Life.
Frontman Hoggard worked every part of the stage with his characteristic pseudo-Mick Jagger peacock strut, showing off the charisma and vocal range that could have given him the second Canadian Idol title had he not stepped down from the competition after reaching the top three.
The show rode the balance between ballads, like Heaven's Gonna Wait where Hoggard settled behind a red piano, and up-tempo rockers like Hands Up - which required "severe audience participation" in the form of intermittent hand claps - before another video interlude allowed the band members to don yellow rain slickers and hats and cram into a prop boat on stage for acoustic renditions of All You Get Is Sound and Isn't She Beautiful.
"It's a fine night to be a boy," Hoggard declared, after surveying the audience's ratio of males to females.
Though it was their fourth trip through town, Hedley showed no lack of appreciation for the crowd, with bassist Tommy Mac even donning a Prince George Cougars jersey for the aptly named Sweater Song.
Previously, Rosin told The Citizen the band's "ADD is finally paying off for sure," on this tour, and he was right. The videos, the props, Crippin's drum solo and even the appearance of a t-shirt cannon in the middle of Don't Talk to Strangers came together to create an experience that proved Hedley is a group of some of Canada's best entertainers.
"Prince George, we've been here before and will be back again and we want to see every one of you back here," Hoggard proclaimed before the band finally left the stage after a four-song encore.
The party tone was set early in the night.
East-coast rapper and singer My Name is Kay opened the show with an impressive set that called back to the 1990s when female MCs playfully held their own with the boys and could croon just as well as they could rhyme.
Toronto-based Karl Wolf brought a more multicultural flavour with his act. The Dubai-bred Wolf mixed Jamaican dancehall and Lebanese rhythms into his set before the one of the country's premier rappers Classified brought it home with a strong set capped off with the patriotic Oh... Canada.
