The stage at the Opera House in Toronto was almost bare on the evening of Feb. 1, save for a black fold-out table with two clippings taped to the front: "World exclusive: I've got Anthrax;" and "The movies go to war: Behind Enemy Lines." The crowd, seated, yapped passionately about everything from Sept. 11 to student action against skyrocketing postsecondary tuition fees. Suddenly, the voice that's saved so many teenagers from suburban nihilism since the late '70s erupted over the PA: "We interrupt this program for a special announcement. This country is now under martial law. All constitutional rights have been suspended." Jello Biafra was in the house, and he was mighty pissed off.

He entered stage right, wearing a long black robe and dark blue, circular glasses, and continued: "Shut up. Do not attempt to think, or depression may occur. Stay in your homes. Curfew is at seven p.m. sharp, after work. Anyone caught outside the gates of their subdivisions after curfew WILL BE SHOT. Remain calm. Do not panic. Your neighbourhood watch officer will be by to collect urine samples in the morning. Anyone interfering with the collection of urine samples WILL BE SHOT."

Biafra's opening speech gave the crowd everything they came for, from name-drops of Stockwell Day and "King George Bush II" to scads of that subversive commentary the man has been dishing out since Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, the first album by his former band, Dead Kennedys. When the speech ended and the robe came off -- revealing Biafra's new Sudbury Fire Department shirt that hugged his generous paunch as well as any shirt should hug any paunch on any 43-year-old North American man -- he launched into a tirade against Mike Harris as insightful and informed as the most vocal members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

This, his knowledge of Canadian politics, was one of two absolutely amazing things about Biafra's latest visit to Toronto. The other is that he was able to sustain the interest of a young crowd for five hours without so much as a verse of "Holiday in Cambodia." Both of these feats, though, are a credit to nothing more than the dynamism and dedication Biafra has brought to the North American left in the past two dozen years. To all young and passionate progressives, he is living, breathing, ranting proof that it's possible to avoid the plunge into spoonfed yuppiedom that is so often equated with getting older and understanding the world. Regardless of what you think about his proclamations, you cannot argue that the man's ability to galvanize twentysomething radicals is far more powerful than a thousand Jaggi Singhs. And, for Biafra, that's the whole idea.

If you missed his performance (and yes, that is the right word) and you've read this far, you're probably dying to hear what the man said. Fear not, friend; SonicMonk captured as much of the show as possible. Here are but a few of the best moments:

On small left-wing Canadian political parties:
"There'd be a far greater chance of actually getting a significant voting bloc in Parliament and all -- so that the Liberals didn't have a full majority and had to cooperate with other people a little more -- if all these parties saw that, mainly, their eyes were on the same prize and combined."

On the Middle East and the "so-called War on Terrorism":
"I fear a mass slaughter of innocent civilians far greater than that of the World Trade Center with the clown prince of the Texas oil barons being handed the keys to weapons of mass destruction, while Israel is in the shackles of its own Saddam Hussein -- and his name is Ariel Sharon.

On the dangers of reintroducing Reagan's "Star Wars" defense system:
What happens if one of those things does malfunction and crashes back to earth -- like the Russian Mir space station did just recently -- burning up in the atmosphere as it comes down, and the plutonium blows? And you've got plutonium dust all over the world's atmosphere, possibly enough to kill every breathing life form on Earth. That's what they're risking up there -- not to protect us from 'rogue nations,' at a time when even many Canadians feel America is the number one rogue nation. [Riotous audience applause.] They're not putting it up there for protection; I mean, those toys wouldn't have done a damn bit of good to stop those planes from flying into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. They just want to put it up there to enrich Donald Rumsfeld's friends -- give the Enron crooks something new to do.

On his legal troubles with his former bandmates:
"They've called up an 'expert witness' from noted punk-grassroots-consciousness enthusiast Grateful Dead Records, and he testified that I should be forced to pay those guys half a million dollars in damages -- they also said I was malicious 'cause I called [Dead Kennedy's guitarist East Bay] Ray greedy, too -- for lack of promotion. Because the band, who now claim they wrote 'MTV Get Off the Air,' want damages 'cause they weren't on MTV, or VH1, or in Billboard or Rolling Stone constantly, even though the band broke up 15 years ago. And to their own visible shock, the jury believed them."

On band names:
"The first part of any good band name is to start with a good concept." Biafra's many suggestions included "Nixon," "Magnum Jihad," "Anchovy Smegma," "Helter Syringe," "Magic Mullet," "Dyke van Dick" and "Drunk Drivers for Jesus." He'd probably be kinda pissed off if you used any of them without asking, though.

There were, of course, dozens of other topics (and hundreds of tangents), including Biafra's Presidential "platform," which he drafted after being nominated for leadership of the Green party in the 2000 U.S. elections (and which you can read here).

While Biafra has no other immediate tour plans, he's bound to visit a town near you soon enough. And when he does, go to his show. The spectacle of witnessing someone who looks like William Shatner on an extreme caffeine kick telling stories and exposing government atrocities to an audience who does everything from clap at the end of each sentence to scream out "What about women's rights?" is, obviously, not to be missed.