Here's a show I didn't expect to be going to, but after entering a contest with The Bear radio station, much to my surprise, I won a pair of tickets to see Burton Cummings and Tom Cochrane play the Fan Park at the Ice District here in Edmonton. The show was originally booked for Saturday June 21st, but was postponed, never did hear why. The new date was set for Monday September 1st, which sucked as it was the Monday of the long weekend. Sunday would have been better as the following day would have been the holiday. But nope, it was Monday, ughh! Regardless, my buddy Nazz and I were going.
Now for these two Canadian acts that play Edmonton on a regular basis, over all the years I have been going to shows, I had never seen either musician in concert before. Not that I have really cared if I saw Tom Cochrane, I have always wanted to see Burton Cummings live, having seen Randy Bachman, Burton's partner in The Guess Who more than a few times, i was excited to finally see Cummings in concert.
The first thing we noticed entering the venue was that it was decent sized crowd and that it was certainly an older crowd for this show.
Opening the show was Tom Cochrane. Because I have never seen him before, I wanted to check out his set. Well, it didn't take long for me to realize, there was a reason I have never gone out of my way to see him before. I'm just not a fan! Of course Tom and his band played all the songs that we have all heard way too many times. Songs such as "Big League", "Boy Inside The Man" and "Life Is A Highway", my buddy Nazz looked at me with eyes rolling, it was time to step out for a smoke. I truly don't care if I ever hear that song again. The one song he did play that I enjoyed live was "Lunatic Fringe" an old Red Rider song of his. Tom mentioned during his way too long set, was that he was flying out of town immediately after the show as he had a gig the following night in Toronto opening for The Who. The crowd was loving Tom's set, me, not so much!
After a quick break it was time for Burton Cummings and his five piece band. I was looking forward to seeing Burton in concert, having never seen him before and liking some of them old classic Guess Who songs that him and Randy Bachman belted out in 60' and 70's after forming The Guess Who in Winnipeg in 1965.
Burton opened his set with the song "Bus Rider", and at 77 years old, Burton still looks good and still has his voice. Second song in was the Guess Who hit "Clap For The Wolfman", that had the good size crowd clapping and singing along. Then came the songs "Hand Me Down World" and "Laughing". Within the first ten songs you start to remember that The Guess Who had a shit load of huge hits that got a lot of play on AM radio back in the day, songs such as "These Eyes", "Guns Guns Guns" and "Albert Flasher". Burton took time between songs to tell some stories and introduce his band. Burton has a child like speaking voice, or so it seemed to me anyways. There were a couple songs I wasn't familiar with, new solo songs. I had mentioned to my buddy Nazz that one I heard "American Woman" and "No Sugar Tonight", I'd be good to leave. And yes, that's what we did. We heard them songs, both songs that I love and have a great concert line up story involving that whole 1970 American Woman album. I'd be happy to tell you the story if you should run into me sometime at a show and care to ask. With it being a work night and getting late, we bailed after hearing them two songs. What we saw of the show, I thought it was great. just wish it had been a weekend show. Good times!!!
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