Death Cab for Cutie/Franz Ferdinand/The Cribs (Ricoh Coliseum, April 17)

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This time of year, it's the Air Canada Centre that should be a battleground. But with the Leafs hitting the golf course, it fell to an arena down the road to host spring's most epic battle. Or, more to the point, to square off in it.

Nothing gets the Ricoh Coliseum's juices flowing like the opportunity to put rock bands in their place. They come in cocky, awash in critical and commercial adulation. By the time they leave the Exhibition grounds, having unsuccessfully done battle with the Ricoh's abominable acoustics, cavernous confines and buzz-killing ambience, their tails are firmly between their legs.

Last fall it was dance-rock hitmakers Franz Ferdinand who were chewed up and spit out. And so this time they brought reinforcements, hoping two sets of tourmates would offer strength in numbers.

First up, more to soften the Ricoh up than to throw knockout punches, were the Cribs - a high-testosterone trio of Wakefield, U.K. brothers. In the early going, it was no contest; even with the siblings' energetic efforts drawing from last year's underrated The New Fellas, there was no defeating a half-empty Ricoh - especially not when the acoustics made it seem as though Ryan Jarman's guitar was an optical illusion. But by the end of their half-hour set, they'd at least scored some body blows - The Wrong Way to Be winning over the crowd as the Cribs chanted in unison, threw mic stands and generally went out swinging.

With fans still doing battle over the Ricoh's unassigned seats, Franz turned up next. And for the first few songs, they seemed outmatched again - lacking the energy and spontaneity that coloured their earlier tours and failing to get much mileage out of recent hit Do You Want To. But then reliably dapper frontman Alex Kapranos threw down the gauntlet.

"I bloody hate this room," he pronounced, surveying a floor that was sold to alleged capacity, but somehow still half-empty. "It is awful, isn't it?" With that, the Scots added something different to their arsenal - L. Wells, a folksy new B-side that charmed in its first Toronto airing. Then, shifting the focus from sophomore disc You Could Have It So Much Better to their more popular self-titled debut, Franz gradually worked the Ricoh onto the ropes, storming through breakthrough single Take Me Out, homoerotic crowd-pleaser Michael and perennial closer This Fire - plus excellent new single The Fallen - as arms finally pumped in the air.

Unfortunately, a lengthy break between sets gave the Ricoh a chance to catch its breath before co-headliners Death Cab for Cutie took the stage. And in the early-going, even an elaborate stage display (complete with little houses and a forest backdrop) and legions of screaming teenaged girls couldn't help the Seattle indie icons. With singer Ben Gibbard going solo behind a keyboard for opener Passenger Seat, the arena seemed to be swallowing him up; even once his bandmates joined him, their mellower, more ethereal sound initially fared worse than Franz's frenetic post-punk.

Then the Ricoh got greedy. Smelling blood, the arena reached into its bag of dirty tricks and pulled out a shrill fire alarm that somehow required 15 minutes to turn off.

But the Death Cab boys are tougher than they look. Furious at the Ricoh's attempt to show them up, they instructed their monitors be cranked up to "ear-piercing" levels and poured their all into their new single, Crooked Teeth. From there, they rallied with a set drawing mostly from their two most recent albums - leading to a massive one-two punch of We Looked Like Giants (Gibbard pounding away at a second drum set to finish the song) and The Sound of Settling to close out the main set.

By the time they returned for an encore, Death Cab had come close enough to slaying the Ricoh that another solo effort by Gibbard - on I Will Follow You Into the Dark, possibly the most morbid song ever to prompt an audience sing-along - proved the night's highlight. By the time they'd wrapped Transatlanticism, the Ricoh was down for the count.

Sadly, the arena will get a chance at redemption in a couple of weeks. But if it gets similarly felled by the Strokes on May 6, perhaps the Ricoh will have the good grace to retire. If not, promoters would do well to make the decision for it.