Hamilton based slacker poet/ musician B.A. Johnston returned to Lethbridge to play another uproarious show at the Owl Acoustic 
Lounge, March 12 for a good sized crowd. With his adenoidal voice and sophomoric sense of humour, Johnston is the Canada’s own version of Weird Al Yankovic minus the song parodies.
Johnston, sporting his traditional sailor’s hat, bounced between his keyboards and a battered guitar while stripping off several layers of sweaters. The letters B.A, lit up with red lights, illuminated his mischievous grin as he began his set with crowd favourites “Deep Fryer in My Bedroom” and “Jesus Lives in Hamilton.”
Then he jumped off the stage through the crowd clustered in front of the stage, got a few of them to sing the well known choruses of a couple of his songs, then leaped on a table, off again and rolled on the floor while making jokes about Medicine Hat, which you just know he made in Medicine Hat, substituting Lethbridge for the punch lines.
He sang a couple new songs including one about “Eating in Tim Horton’s while hating eating in Tim Hortons,” and another popular new one about McDonald’s coupon day being his favourite day of the week, which the audience sang along with.
He rounded out a good set of music which began with the Ruby Plumes playing a strong set of punk an pre-punk music which ended with energetic versions of Iggy and the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” and MC5’s “Kick Out the jams.”
Fist City also returned to Lethbridge for the first time in a long time. I hadn’t seen them for while. The crowd clustered in front of the stage. They had a new bassist who fit right in with the band’s ear bleeding set. They played a lot of catchy originals which blended garage rock with punk and delay drenched surf music.
They played mostly original songs along with covers of the Gun Club and another catchy song called “Uncontrollable.”
