In support of their 9th and latest release on Stomp Records, Rats in the Burlap, The Real McKenzies have been on tour since early March with The Isotopes which started on the Canadian west coast on March 5th in Golden, British Columbia and have been going further East ever since.
It's been 3 years since their last release Westwinds and things have been pretty quiet for the Canadian Celtic Punkers since but Rats in the Burlap has proven that the band is showing no signs of wear and tear even as they hit their 23rd anniversary with their 9th full-length release and hit the road for a total of 3 whole months. However including with all these impressive milestones is the unfortunate passing of their guitar player Dave Gregg, last year late March who also played with Vancouver punk band D.O.A.
The band dropped in Toronto at The Horseshoe Tavern on March 26th with tour supporters The Isotopes and a local ska-punk act that go by the name of The Ruthless Ones who opened up the night.
Starting the night off to a room that was still filling with people but still appreciated the music, The Ruthless Ones came in with some dance-able tunes that sure were reminiscent of early third wave ska acts like Operation Ivy and Basic Radio which fittingly enough they included a cover of "Bad Town" in their performance. A pretty solid set, considering that one of the front man's guitar strings broke but he still kept on playing while missing a string, a tough call for a lot of musicians but he pulled it off surprisingly good and ended off the night like that. Stage presence could be improved as there were a lot of silent moments with in between songs with their backs turned to the audience but otherwise a good start for the night.
Next up was Lousville Kentucky's The Isotopes. I've actually never heard of a baseball-influenced punk band before but there's a first for everything I guess. These guys basically have lyrics covering baseball related stuff and turn them into punk rock songs that reminded me a lot of Screeching Weasel and The Ramones, which again fittingly enough the singer of this band was wearing a t-shirt of The Toronto Blue Jays (MLB Baseball Team) with the Screeching Weasel's logo instead of a Blue Jay. A fun and energetic set to continue the night, they're definitely a band to see live if they're in your area - in fact they're so energetic and jumpy that first song in the singer just started randomly doing push ups on stage, I'm not sure why but I'm not one to judge, it was hilarious to watch though.
They played a pretty short set however, only clocking in at about 20 minutes or so (Ruthless Ones played over 30 minutes easily) but nonetheless they did do a chant of "Take me out to the ball-game" with a so-so responsive crowd.
Last up The Real McKenzies came in to a cheering crowd and kicked off with their celtic punk tunes that got everyone excited to finally see them play in a very long time although not without incident (well, sort of) as two songs in singer Paul McKenzie offered some beer from his bottle to people in the crowd which spilled a little bit on someone who tried to take a swing at him (but missed, fortunately) and was eventually ejected from the club.
Playing various songs from all their known albums including Off The Leash, Westwinds, 10 000 Shots and even Oot & Aboot they still made time to play some new ones from Rats in the Burlap including the instant classics "Midnight Train to Moscow" and "What Have You Done". I can't think of a better way to describe the set than how Homer Simpson described his back to college experience with his nerd tutors in Homer Goes To College: 'What better way to spread beer-fueled mayhem?'. It honestly was a good set of celtic-punk music and drinking, exactly the way it should be.
At the end of the night, they came back for an encore and played a few more songs until the whole band came up and sang Stan Roger's "Barrett's Privateers" in A capella in it's entirety with the whole crowd. I couldn't get 'How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now..", the whole night after.
One of the best shows I have been to so far this year, they proved that after all these years with their ups and downs they still have it (they've been around longer than The Dropkick Murphy's, just an FYI). These Guys Rule.