Rhinos tore up the Slice, March 9. But these were the good kind of rhinos — Dust Rhinos, the kind that play uptempo Celtic rock, which get feet moving, 
toes tapping and hands clapping and shout “sociable” after every song.
The Winnipeg based Celtic rock collective the Dust Rhinos made an auspicious debut in Lethbridge. To the uninitiated, a “sociable” is when the whole room raises their glasses to the air and drinks together. It’s a Winnipeg thing or maybe a Maritime thing.
Either way it got pretty drunk out pretty quickly for about 20-30 people who embraced the spirit of the sociable with open arms and mouths at the kitchen party of the year as charismatic frontman Blair McEvoy observed “It’s going to be one of those nights. The band is going to be falling off the stage by the end of the night.”
None of them fell off the stage, but they definitely owned it.
The Dust Rhinos have been together for 19 years and have released five CDs, so they had a lot to draw from for their first show.
They did so in spades, playing three solid sets of original songs, mainly exploring various aspects of drinking and carousing.
It took a while before the audience warmed up to them, but a few dancers on the floor during the first set expanded to most of the room by the end of the third.
And what’s not to love? There was plenty of frenetic, fleet fingered fiddling from two hot fiddle players, upbeat guitar and lots of good vibes and energy crackling through the air.
Dale Brown switched from fiddle to a bouzouki for a couple of the more rock inspired numbers and applied a little wah wah to it for extra textures. Andy Bart, the other fiddle player, was just in Lethbridge a few weeks ago with the Magnificent Sevens.
They ended their set with the Great Big 
Sea hit ‘When I’m Up (I Can’t Get Down).’
They got extra cool points for their ‘Jedi Drinking Test’ which I requested. Probably the best and only drinking song taking place in the Star Wars world. And even better, later on they Celticized my favourite Social Distortion song ‘Ball and Chain.’
They began set two with an original ‘Just Can’t Drink Anymore,’ but were just getting started.
In addition to upbeat original drinking songs, they played an array of very cool covers like Peter Gabriel's ‘Solsbury Hill,’ an old Steve Earle song ‘Galway Girl’ as well as a cool cover of “I Fought the Law,” which fell somewhere between the classic Clash version and the Bobby Fuller Four original.
McEvoy advised the audience to not think too long about dancing because their songs were only about two minutes long.
They also took the opportunity to introduce some brand new tracks, including a Celtic sea shanty sounding track they said was to be on their next album.
