If you ever thought Lethbridge audiences are too sedate, you weren’t at Canadian punk legends SNFU’s show at Bully’s Entertainment Centre, Sunday, June 21. 

They capped off an energetic night of punk/hardcore and metal, in the process proving, though the band is over 20 years old, that  they can still bring it. Singer Chi Pig was a marvel as he shook his shaggy blond mane— his Fu Manchu mustache making him look like a Chinese New Year’s lion hopped up on a potent mix of speed , adrenaline and beer. He found crazed kindred spirits in the front row where most of the local punks sung and shouted along with every word Chi Pig sang, though I couldn’t understand a word he said.

“I’m going to hang out with you afterwards,” he grinned at Richard Yarwood in the front row, who knew every word.

The punks bounced off each other like mohawked rubber balls, drummer Shane Smith was a blur resurrecting the spirit of John Bonham and guitarist Ken Goonie wasn’t perturbed  by Chi Pig’s antics. He didn’t miss  a note, even when, at times, Chi Pig grabbed his ass. Chi rolled all over the stage, licked the mic, stood on his head and donned a variety of weird masks and  abused a cyclops doll he held above his head — let's just say I pitied that poor doll, the things Chi Pig was pretending to do with it. The band wasn’t put off by the water bottles and alcohol flying through the air, neither was bassist Just Denis who was shook up at the beginning — a flying projectile may have hit him. 

It was impressive, while Chi Pig wasn’t leaping off massive stacks of speakers like he was when I saw SNFU at the U of L back in the day, he can still carry a wicked melody and has energy and then some.  It was a good time and worth being zombified early the next morning.