Let’s face it, Hamilton based slacker poet B.A. Johnston is an acquired taste. But while he makes no pretensions about wanting to sing on the stage of the 
Grand Ole Opry or singing opera at Carnegie Hall, he is what he is — hilarious. Though not so much if you aren’t prepared for one of his shows and leave your sense of humour and sense of shame at home.
Because anything can happen and usually does at a B.A. Johnston show.There is something about his manic energy and quirky and crazy songs about things like food, video games, deep fryers, television shows and “ pretty girls going out with ugly guys,” that resonates with the lonely slacker geek and anti-social misfit in all of us.
This time he dressed in a pirate costume, while singing a song about the government, and wandered through the packed house like a shirtless Weird Al Yankovic on ecstasy.
He jumped on the tables and risked life and limb by jumping off them. He played a lot of crowd favourites in all of their out of tuned guitar, piercing synth and gravel voiced glory. But he lost it midway through the show, growling a profanity-laced rant at a particularly rambunctious fan. He didn’t think things were going well. He told the crowd,“don‘t clap for this, where’s your sense of shame” and kept asking the audience “Are you sure you want me to do another,” and “this is why I play free shows,” in his endearing self deprecating way.
“I always thought I’d die in Medicine Hat, not Lethbridge,” he said after snarling at the fan. He was about to call it quits, but regained his vis comica pretty quickly as he sang his most popular number “Jesus was born in Hamilton.”
But the audience was into it, they clustered in front of the stage and kept calling for more.
He ended his show with a rousing version of the theme from popular ’70s, ’80s Canadian TV show “the Littlest Hobo,” which segued into Queen’s “We Are The Champions” and ended the show by leading most of the people in front of the stage into the bathroom. I’m not sure what happened there, and am not sure I want to.
