Great Big Sea steps up the rock with new disc and Western Fair stop.

Great Big Sea storms into the 133rd edition of the Western Fair on Tuesday, the same night Oasis plays the John Labatt Centre.

"You think they're worried about us?" jests Alan Doyle, frontman of the Newfoundland and Labrador Sea-men.

"I'm a huge Oasis fan . . . how can I work this? I would love to see Oasis," Doyle muses, as he continues laughing, before steering himself back on Sea tack.

Doyle and his Great Big Sea bandmates Sean McCann and Bob Hallett return to the fair's grandstand.

The band played the fair in 1997 and 2006. Thousands of fans have already bought tickets for the return gig.

"I like it . . . it's quite fun," Doyle says of the fair.

Tuesday's concert is the first official date on the tour supporting the St. John's-based band's ninth album, Fortune's Favour (Warner).

Doyle is intrigued to hear a few details about Great Big Sea's place in the 2008 grandstand evening lineup. Canadian classic rocker David Clayton-Thomas has the opening spot tomorrow. U.S. country star Randy Travis and rocker Daughtry, with frontman Chris Daughtry, play later next week.

When it's Great Big Sea's turn in the mix, fans who favour rock are in luck.

"This is the first time I got to play guitar like I played in my high school bands . . . hair metal bands were everywhere," Doyle says.

With Canadian indie hero and multi-instrumentalist Hawksley Workman on board as a producer, Fortune's Favour was always going to be a little different.

Workman heard his Great Big buddies fooling around with some Def Leppard or AC/DC songs and insisted some of that fun be on the new record.

At least two tracks -- Oh Yeah and Straight to Hell -- rock something like the 1980s. Or the 1960s. And like Great Big Sea.

"I'd rather piss off my fans than bore them . . . it would be easy for us to phone in a record. We have a formula that works . . . sing a few more happy songs," Doyle says.

No way that was ever going to happen. Not with Doyle, McCann, Hallett, Workman and others messing with that winning formula.

Fortune's Favour includes songs about the bleakness of Newfoundland life (Rocks of Merasheen and Banks of Newfoundland) and its joys (Dance Dance).

Doyle co-wrote with Cape Breton-raised Grammy-winner Gordie Sampson (Walk on the Moon) and Oscar-winner Russell Crowe (Company of Fools)

"This album is a stew of all our influences," says Hallett.

"Bob Marley, the Clash, (Ryan's Fancy's) Fergus O'Byrne, (Newfoundland singer-songwriter) Ron Hynes, Johnny Cash, (Irish folk singer) Donal Lunny, and who knows what else. So who better to sum it all up than C.S. Lewis: 'Further in and further up.' "

The fans have been along for the ride. Fortune's Favour just went gold. "I think it's our 12th straight gold record (counting DVDs)," Doyle says.

Great Big Sea's Warner debut Up started that streak in 1995. Up eventually went platinum and its successor Play took the band into hockey arenas and fair grandstands across Canada.

That voyage continues Tuesday -- even if it keeps Doyle from a date with the feuding Gallagher brothers and Oasis.

It's not likely to interrupt one "brother's" Great Big tradition in downtown London.

Sometime after Tuesday's show, it is quite possible that Doyle's "brother" and some other Sea-men may be seen and heard at the Brass Door, a pub on King Street. It has become the place for Great Big partying music after the band's London gigs.

"I've heard of it . . . my brother goes there all the time after our gigs," Doyle has said of the Brass Door buzz.

"He's crazy, that one."