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 voc
al 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.
And you wouldn’t have thought they could carry their intensity forth throughout a quick acoustic set ( giving their bagpiper Matt MacNasty a bit of a breather) but they did, as McKenzie crowed “Silence my friends,” to the audience who weren’t about to do that, though they did briefly when he cried “Silence, my Albertans.”
He had them in the palm of his beer soaked hands by the time they reached “Mainland,” a popular mid ’90s numb
er,” as 
he bemoaned missing the ocean, spat beer onto the audience and then encouraged everyone to visit Scotland before singing a classic Scottish ballad his grandmother taught him in 1963.
“Pour Decisions” was yet another highlight as McKenzie prefaced the song by noting his mommy hoped he would become a Catholic priest while his daddy was hoping for him becoming a policeman instead of a punk rocker.
McKenzie showed the d
epths of his music talent by pulling out a tin whistle and later on, near the end of his set, his saxophone for one last hot song before they took a quick breather before an encore sparked by the entire room relentlessly chanting “McKenzies, McKenzies,” until they returned to the stage to end one awesome, show of Celtic punk which properly primed the audience for St. Patrick’s Day.
Lethbridge punk trio the Scallywags opened up the show with an intense set of uptempo punk, which had most of the audience shouting along.
And, while the Real McKenzies were setting up, the Lethbridge Firefighters Pipes and Drums played an energetic tweener of loud, bagpipe heavy traditional Scottish music, which even had a couple audience members dancing, especially during a rock tinged version of ‘Auld Lang Syne.’
