Next weekend, Great Big Sea - Alan Doyle, Bob Hallett, Sean McCann, and Darrell Power - will return to one of their favourite venues, the Thomson Student Centre.

The band has just released their new CD, up, which is their first on the Warner Music Canada label. The move to a major label was not as overwhelming as one would think.

Instead, it was a comfortable change.

Bands like The Skydiggers, and Spirit of the West, Irish Descendants, Loreena McKennitt, were all in the Warner family, Bob Hallett said. Working on a major label did not take away from the album making process. We did have a lot of fun making this album and it really sounds like it, said Darrell Power. But it wasnt all fun and games added Hallet. With the CD, this has been a long time coming for us, I mean its new for everybody else but for us this is a sum of two years worth of work.

With up, the band wanted to capture the feeling of their live shows, thus the title. For their first titled CD, the band wanted something catchy and easy to remember. Goin Up was a possible candidate, but they envisioned themselves doing photo shoots in elevators and chose up instead.

Power noteed that by the time they started to record this CD, they had already fine-tuned the songs on the road. When we came into the studio to do it, it was already so well put-together and we were already so happy with it, that [the] same aggressive mood and atmosphere [of the live show] came out in the album. In comparison to their first self-titled CD, up is more reflective of their individual styles.

This one is the sum of two years worth of songs and two years worth of work, said Hallett.

So the end result is that this is the way the band plays, this is the kind of music the band likes to play.

Their new single, a cover of Slades Run, Runaway, was an afterthought. Runaway was one we did after everything else, we came back...about a month after wed finished the initial recording...and someone said Why dont we do Runaway while were here? said Hallett. The first tracks were so lively and so much fun we blew right through the whole thing.

Great Big Sea is famous for their live shows and they have played to audiences all across Canada.

We approach all audiences the same, that this audience could be won over - we really enjoy playing live...the audience will appreciate it whether were in Saskatoon or Zimbabwe, commented Hallett.

But dont try to categorize this band.

Power said: The best compliment for us is after a show for someone to come up and say: What a great show -- what kind of music is it? The influences are so diverse that putting a label on their unique sound is virtually impossible. Hallett notes that this is one of the reasons the band chose to go with Warner Music Canada.

We thought this is a...company that already had experience with our kin of thing - theyre not going to pigeonhole us.

The band is looking forward to their concert on November 3 at the Thomson Student Centre (TSC). Thats going to be a mad show, Power said. The last time we did the TSC it was simply crazy from start to finish and this one is not going to be any different.

(With files from Chris Smith, CHMR.)