It will always be a mystery to me why Edmonton born, Vancouver based punk icons SNFU never hit superstardom during the great punk resurgence of the early ’90s with the likes of Green Day, Bad Religion, Blink 182 and Sum 42. Perhaps because they were and still are too weird for the 
mainstream.
But a good sized Lethbridge crowd got a taste of Canadian punk rock royalty, July 16 at Inferno.
Lone original member Ken Chin best known as Chi Pig, dressed in a sequinned dress and Warriors biker vest, knows how to pick musicians.
He had former Real McKenzies guitarist Dirty Kurt Robertson, UK Subs drummer Jamie Oliver plus Randy on guitar and Dave Bacon who played on SNFU's 1986 album If You Swear, You'll Catch No Fish.
They were tight, tight, tight as they backed Chi Pig's quirky vocals with a whole lot of punk power and a touch of metal.
Chi Pig wasn’t bouncing off amplifiers or swinging props like a Devil's pitchfork around like he did back in the day, but you couldn’t take your eyes off the ever charismatic frontman, right from the beginning of the show when he hocked a loogie on the stage and tried to wipe it on Dirty Kurt who snarled “get away from me.”
After all he’s been through with addiction and health issues it’s a minor miracle Chi Pig is still alive, let alone still hitting some of the impressive vocal notes he was hitting.
As expected they played a lot from the record “And No One Else Wanted to Play” including ‘Cannibal Cafe,’ which had the enthusiastic audience shouting along and my favourite She’s Not on the Menu” for which he had Scallywags mohawked bassist Josh Scallywag shouting along.
It was amazing. They focused on “And No One Else wanted to play,” but touched on music from throughout their career.
The drummer was a blur of energy and the whole band was locked in tight.
The bassist Dave Bacon, with an artificial leg with the SNFU fish logo emblazoned on it, shouted at the crowd “Have you had enough yet” mid way through the set.
They hadn’t so SNFU was happy to pound out some more energetic punk, spanning all of their albums for another half hour.
He shouted ‘had enough?’ at the end, and they played one last song.
“Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump” was a highlight, which Chi Pig said was about Lethbridge.
I missed the opening set by Medicine Hat metal band Western Death, but was pleased to catch a solid set of music about drinking and screwing and being frustrated by life from local punks the Scallywags who were a trio for this show.
Bob Scallywag shouted the lyrics and they had the audience starting a mosh pit, which carried through to SNFU.
