When you hear a rock band is going to incorporate bagpipes, you wonder how they are going to pull it off, but when you see the Real McKenzies, you wonder why every rock band doesn’t have a bagpiper.

Vancouver’s own Real McKenzies returned to Lethbridge to tear the roof off of Bo Diddly’s , March 15 for a close to capacity crowd. And they had a bagpiper who fit in so naturally that it made the listener wonder why everyone doesn’t have one.

 They had it. Two guitarists and a thunderous drummer and bassist provided an aural bludgeoning to be proud of. And charismatic frontman Paul McKenzie, a veteran of the early ’80s Vancouver punk scene, bekilted and sporting a leather jacket and Scottish beret owned the stage while showing off a very impressive voice, giving the band a Bad Religion meets Dead Kennedys with bagpipes, sound.

 I haven’t seen a mosh pit this ferocious in Lethbridge for quite some time. But it was well worth it. They started off with a beautiful a cappella song “Row You Bastards’ featuring some very cool vocal harmonies , then the band kicked in and chaos ensued.

 They got the crowd involved singing along with a highlight ‘My Luck is So Bad, It’s Only Going to Get Better.” The enthusiastic crowd of mohawked and leather/ spike dressed punks sang another one all the way through, drowning out the band as the mosh continued.

 The Real McKenzies sang a lot about drinking and whiskey and drinking, and a little bit about Louis Riel and sailing and added a massive jigger of fun to the entire proceedings as they encouraged the frothing audience to ‘Drink Some More,’ during another of the intense, loud and exciting show’s many highlights.

Kelowna based musician Devon Coyote returned to the Owl Acoustic Lounge to play a solid set of original music for a good sized audience, March 14.
 He began with an extended instrumental, which he began by looping a mellow acoustic chord progression and then playing a soulful, blues tinged solo over it.

 He carried on in that vein for a while, then switched guitars to a Weissenborn, on which he played a eerie version of Neil Young’s ‘Ohio,’ with plenty of haunting slide.

 He switched to a 12 string for a couple songs, then back to the acoustic. Sometimes he’d just play and sing, other songs he’d stomp out a rhythm on the microphoned box he was standing on. He ended his first set by looping another acoustic riff and playing over it.

Get your dancing shoes on for Daniel Wesley, who stops by Average Joes, March 22 to “rock the house ” for Ocean Party 4.
 “Lethbridge has always been good to us. They always rock the house, so we’re going to bring that,” said Wesley from Kelowna, en route to Nelson, in the middle of a 10 show in 11 day tour.

The show is fairly evenly spread over five albums. I’m playing about 22-25 songs, so it’s a fairly long set. It should be a lot of fun. People should come and get ready to dance,” he continued.
The Vancouver based singer/ songwriter, had a busy 2011 having  completed along tour with Matthew Good and went on a six week vacation with his wife to South America. He is back at ’er, touring in support of his latest CD ”‘Easy Livin’” which was released in August.

 “The Matt Good tour was a lot of fun. We played a lot of different venues. We played the  National Arts Centre in Ottawa for 2,900 people and places like the Stone for a couple hundred,” he said.

The Boogie Patrol are planning on boogieing the summer away, but first, they return to Lethbridge, March 24 at the Slice.

“We’re just gearing up for summer. We‘re hoping more festivals will get back to us,” said Boogie Patrol lead singer/ harp player Rotten Dan Shinnan.
So far they have been booked to play Salmon Arms blues and roots festival as well as the horse Thief Hideout in Invermere and are working on more.

 They released a new CD in August “I Try and I Try and I Don’t Know What to Do… the Plan Was Set Some Time Ago and We Must Follow Through.”
“It’s got some really good response and really good reviews. You can really hear how different the band is,” he said adding the CD shows their evolution over the past couple years.

Shinnan said diversity was the watchword  for this CD — that and keyboards.
“There are a lot of keyboards on it from Sean Grieve. He’s been with the band for almost two years now and he’s great,” he said.
“ He gives the band room to play, especially Yuji (Ihara), the guitarist,” he said.