Vancouver based, bagpipe powered Scottish Celtic punk band the Real McKenzies shows can be good, bad or ugly. Their March 14 show at the Owl Acoustic Lounge was a little of all three.
The band was tight (they didn’t miss a note), and so was frontman Paul McKenzie, who had tipped a few before their show and it showed.
He was celebrating with some of his Lethbridge based family members before their set and was having a good time.
Real McKenzies shows are known for being drunken bacchanals so I look forward to the Lethbridge show every year.
While I was disappointed to not hear much from their latest record “Songs of the Highlands, Songs of the Sea,” I recognized a few of their more popular tracks.
They opened with a few bars of “Scotland the Brave,” which is on the new album and then crashed into the apt “Pour Decisions” about living the life of a punk rocker, with McKenzie bellowing “you still wish you were me.”
I didn’t recognize a lot of the set, but they are also celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their 2003 album “Oot & Aboot,” which I’m not as familiar with, so a lot of it may have been from that record. I recognized “The Night the Lights Went Out in Scotland.”
Either way it was what you expected from a Real McKenzies show — a lot of energy, frenetic bagpiping, loud, punchy mid tempo guitar riffs and Paul McKenzie bellowing songs about Scottish history and whiskey interspersed with rants about Louis Riel and Scotland.
A few highlights included my favourite, “the Mainland,” “Best Day Til Tomorrow,” and “Seafarers” from “Two Devils Will Talk.”
“He had the audience singing along with “Drink Some More,’” always a crowd pleaser.
McKenzie even broke out his saxophone for a couple songs. He used to play saxophone in the Enigmas in his pre Real McKenzies days so it is always a treat when he brings out the sax and goes mad with it during a Real McKenzies show.
And then it got ugly and really put a damper on an otherwise, fun, drunken weekday bender.
As entertaining and engaging as Paul McKenzie is, it is tough to hear stage patter in the Owl at the best of times and McKenzie's on stage rants can become tiresome, so I left for the washroom as he was exhorting the crowd to form an all female mosh pit, with “no dicks allowed. ”
Things escalated from there though I didn’t hear the details.
It didn’t go over well with the crowd and after playing a few more songs, the show ended with the band trying to do some damage control, with one of them telling the audience “that we are allies.”
I don't know exactly what was said, but racism, transphobia , homophobia or blind hatred and disrespect is never acceptable under any circumstances.
McKenzie punctuated another crazy Real McKenzies night by falling off the side of the stage.
I missed the opening set by MomBod, who always put on a good show, but was in time for most of a hot set from Toronto based female powered punk band Anti-Queens. Lead singer Emily Bones has a hell of a powerful, multi-octave voice and was thrashing away at her guitar for a solid set of Runaways style punk rock.
Lead guitarist Valerie Knox sang lead on a couple of the songs and played a few harmonized leads with Emily Bones.
Most of their set was original music, though they added a cover of the Misfits’ “Where Eagles Dare.”
They played a solid set of catchy, upbeat punk rock, but showed their classic rock and metal side with a couple of huge riff filled songs to wind up their set. “Read My Mind” wound up an excellent set.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
