B.A Johnston performs new music

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BA Johnston always puts on an entertaining show. He entertained a decent sized, Tuesday night crowd at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, April 18 in support of his new album “Gremlins 3.”

B.A Johnston entertaining a Tuesday night Owl Acoustic Lounge audience. Photo by Richard Amery
 The Hamilton based slacker poet/ folk musician/ manic madman leaped around the stage,  rolled into the crowd, fed customers their own drinks, wandered behind the bar and fed bartender Braeden a bottle of something strong, and stripped off sweatshirts as usual, except this time they all had the same logo on them.


 He leaped back on stage like the bastard child of Weird Al Yankovic and the Arrogant Worms, checked his hand as if to see if the name of the city he was playing was written on it, made jokes about Medicine Hat and Owl owner Steve Foord. He thrashed at his battered acoustic guitar played keyboards with his nose and fiddled with his “iPod” aka a vintage, malfunctioning Discman for the more synth heavy background beats.


 He started off with quirky crowd favourites including “Deep Fryer in My Basement” and “No “Frills.” and got the crowd to shout along with “GST Cheques.”

 He also played a couple of the new songs including “Dayoff is a Dayoff, about being drunk, but being called in to work anyway plus “Cheap Suds” and “Drive Thru Beef.”


 He also added relatively newer songs like “My Room Mate is a Couche Tard.”
He ended his set with the always popular “McDonald’s Coupon Day,” before officially ending the fast paced, hilarious show in the ladies’ washroom, where he sang “I Want to Get Drunk,” accompanied by half of the good natured audience.
I missed Bubble Wrap’s opening set. Local synth rock band Open Channels played another solid opening set of original music including crowd favourites like “Checkpoint Charlie” as well as new material.
 It was powered by scrappy guitar and perky synthesizers

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 26 April 2017 09:19 )