It might seem safe to assume that a band opening a concert with a 54-year-old song is reaching back to the earliest days in their career. At the Saddledome Monday night, the Guess Who opened the evening with a spirited run through Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon, a track from 1972 Live at the Paramount. By that point, the Guess Who had been around in one form or another for seven years. Probably longer if you count their first glimmers in Winnipeg. They had a number of gold records, including one given to them by Dick Clark on American Bandstand. It had been two years since they became the first Canadian band to have a No. 1 song in the U.S. with American Woman. They had conquered the U.S. market like no Canadian act before them, which makes the homespun lyrics that give shoutouts to Red Deer and Medicine Hat all the more charming.
A Night of History and Hits
In fact, it could be argued that the band’s hit-making heyday was behind them by 1972. In the very least, The Guess Who had moved onto a new phase in its career. Lead guitarist and co-founder Randy Bachman had already left the act, forming hitmakers Bachman-Turner Overdrive. On Monday, Bachman and lead-singer Burton Cummings, who are touring under the Guess Who banner for the first time in 25 years, did not offer a detailed history of Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon. But the concert was full of history lessons — well, given the vintage of most of the audience members, perhaps they were more reminders than lessons.
Cummings announced to the Saddledome crowd that he has known Bachman for more than 60 years, having met him as a teenager In Winnipeg. It’s a remarkable run, of course, and one that seems quintessentially Canadian despite the act’s success in the U.S. Along the way, there were numerous breakups and reunions and a triumphant court win that finally allowed them to tour under the Guess Who name. But, 60 years later, they are back in filling stadiums rather than casinos.
Musical Highlights and Performances
On Monday, Cummings told the audience about the early Winnipeg songwriting session he shared with Bachman that produced their first hit, These Eyes. He talked about the weekly TV show the band did in Winnipeg in the late 1960s, befriending DJ Wolfman Jack and getting all those gold records. Why not boast about these things? They are a part of our cultural history. Besides, if you reach the ages of Cummings and Bachman — 78 and 82, respectively — and still have the energy to anchor a 90-minute rock show you should have carte blanche to say whatever you want about your achievements.
Bachman can still shred on guitar, even if he spends the entire show perched on a stool. Cummings’ tenor doesn’t have the piercing qualities it once did, but why would it? He can still carry a tune and Monday’s collection of hits — These Eyes, American Woman, No Sugar Tonight, Laughing, No Time and Undun — were all performed with enthusiasm and polish. It could be argued the band hit its peak, however, when it was a looser unit, churning out juke-joint rockers such as Albert Flasher, Clap for the Wolfman, Star Baby and Cummings’ rollicking 1977 track My Own Way to Rock, the only tune played from his solo catalogue. There was the odd stately ballad: the slightly prog-ish A Wednesday in Your Garden and Cummings’ melodic “hippie” tune Share The Land.
But the band was best when serving up straight rock ‘n’ roll, which was usually preceded by Cummings’ asking some variation on whether Alberta liked to rock ‘n’ roll. Bachman-Turner Overdrive were represented by three of their classic-rock staples, including the concert-closing Takin’ Care of Business and You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. There was something endearing about Cummings gamely taking on the role of a tambourine-wielding sidekick/backup singer as Bachman howled through BTO’s Let it Ride.
