I went to a punk show and got the full monty, July 19 at the Moose Hall. I should have expected something like it when Edmonton street punk band MSA's pre set banter involved digging up GG Allin's corpse, pissing in the skull and drinking from it.
I spent the weekend commutin
g to and from the South Country Fair in Fort Macleod so I had to choose between going back to South Country Fair and communing with hippies or going to the Moose Hall and communing with the Lethbridge punks at a crusty, dirty, sweaty street punk show with Edmonton's MSA and Abuse of Substance plus Taber acoustic punks the Mangy Mutts and Bob Scallywag.
I chose the punks and was glad I did because I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
MSA lead singer and self proclaimed “fat, hairy Henry Rollins” Myke Peters stripped down to his shorts and bounced around the stage as the consummate frontman, shouting out lyrics, jumped into the audience and getting tangled up in microphone cables.
They played a big, loud and extremely tight set of catchy punk rock music, which was even more impressive considering the on stage antics.
MSA put on the wildest punk show I’ve ever seen in Lethbridge. Half the band was naked by the second song, Peters played didgeridoo on a raunchy cover of Midnight Oil's “Beds are Burning” and some mean harmonica on a hot cover of Neil Young's “Heart of Gold.” They also tore apart the Outfield's ’80s hit “Your Love.”
And one crazy, drunken bastard was jumping all over the place lifting people up acting like an inebriated mess and a general pain in the ass. A punk show is probably the only place you can act like that and not get your clock cleaned. Three of them picked him up for some abbreviated crowd surfing. Yet the rest of the 20 some people there would knock him to the ground and still help pick him up.
Everybody got in to a couple pretty excellent mosh pits and then there was the three person crowd surfing. The show began at 9 p.m., but that was Lethbridge time so Bob Scallywag had pretty much just started his set by 10:30 p.m
He played a solid set of acoustic punk, drinking songs and a cover of the Ramones “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg (My Brain is Hanging Upsidedown.)”
I also caught the Mangy Mutts who played a fun set of acoustic punk with washboard, home made muck bucket bass and guitar.
They played their own songs and covers of Hank III and Corb Lund songs.
Abuse of Substance played a set of raunchy angry street punk. The trio leaped all over the stage and combined a lot of energy and fun with a little bit of raw, unbridled rage.
