Simple Plan's pop-punks wear their hearts on their sleeves

Over the years, Simple Plan has been called many things - from a great band, according to fans, to less flattering labels from hard-core punk fans who dislike their pop-friendly sound.

Now we can add 'peacemaker' to the list after their show this week at AsiaWorld-Expo, their first since 2002. As the band returned for their encore, a mild commotion broke out in the crowd, which was dealt with calmly by frontman Pierre Bouvier. 'Are you fighting? No, man! We're cool!' Turning to a security guard about to break up the tussle, the singer adds: 'Mr Security, we're cool.'

As quickly as it started, the troubled died down just as the opening bars of I'm Just a Kid rolled out.

Bouvier introduced each song with a witty reference, play on words or something more profound, as in I'm Just a Kid: 'I dedicate this to anyone who refuses to get old. Stay young in here [points to self].'

Simple Plan has been around for more than a decade. They epitomised the slacker, I'm-a-loser-but-proud-of-it culture of the late 1990s. With that in mind, you'd expect concert-goers to be nostalgic 30-somethings, but you'd be wrong. Teens and hipsters in their early 20s made up the majority of the crowd - a real shock if you consider that Simple Plan's debut was released in 2002, probably just a few years after some of the fans were born.

Overall it was a high-energy show where the Canadian band, especially Bouvier, appeared to be overly courteous and sometimes sheepish. The lead singer kept on apologising for their now infamous cancelled gig in August.