Read 2 reviews of their first reunion tour concert From Nancy Steisslinger here (http://www.orbitworld.net/bnsteiss/Reunion/Crescentwood/crescentwood.html) Also link there to great concert photos!Guess Who News -
latest update: 09-21-00 Read 2 reviews of their first reunion tour concert From Nancy Steisslinger here (http://www.orbitworld.net/bnsteiss/Reunion/Crescentwood/crescentwood.html) Also link there to great concert photos!
|
Thursday, September 21, 2000 More MuchMusic Video Awards coverage Cummings and going across Canada By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun TORONTO -- Toronto hasn't seen the last of The Guess Who. Not by a long shot. After rehearsing American Woman with Lenny Kravitz yesterday for tonight's MuchMusic Video Awards, singer Burton Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman said the plan is to return to The Big Smoke for a small club show. "There's talk of coming back here in November and doing some sort of, dare I say it, secret gig, tough ticket kind of thing," said Bachman. Added Cummings: "We'd like to come back to Toronto and do something like the El Mocambo, the way the El Mocambo was in its heyday. We'd like to come back and do some tiny place for 200-300 people, play up close to them. But we'll see." Until then, you won't be able to miss them. The Guess Who still have to mix their upcoming live album -- they recorded their entire 27-show Canadian summer tour -- and there's a CBC special of their Winnipeg homecoming concert due in mid-November. The band's reunion tour, which kicked off May 31 in Newfoundland, shows no signs of stopping. They play Barrie tomorrow. "It was probably my most fun summer in about 15 or 20 years," said Bachman. "It was really overhwhelming, in all aspects, personally, musically, critically, with the critics, and with the fans. 'Cause The Guess Who, we're a real Prairie people's band, and to go back across Canada and go to some of the same places, it was like a big family reunion, almost, from coast to coast." A U.S. tour is up in the air, but there is talk of their returning to Australia, and possibly Japan. "Who knows?" said Cummings. "I think we can all safely say the sky's the limit right now. It's just still overwhelming to all of us." |
Older Guess Who shows fine form
By JOHN KENDLE
Winnipeg Sun
GUESS WHO
Crescentwood Community Centre, Winnipeg
Sunday May 21, 2000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
They came as early as 9:30 a.m. to win a chance to buy tickets. At 5 p.m. they cheered when their lucky lottery numbers were called and groaned when they weren't. And finally, a select few Guess Who fans -- just 200 ticket winners and a hundred or so media and guests -- were ushered into the intimate confines of the Crescentwood Community Centre last night to see their heroes go, as the promotional tag went, "back to where it all began." Crescentwood is indeed one of the training grounds for The Guess Who -- a place where they cut their teeth, learned their chops and began to realize their potential.
Anticipation for the event was high -- so high that a pair of tickets for the show sold at silent auction for $750. Offers of $100 to $300 per ticket were heard being made outside the small hall just before the show. Inside, the atmosphere was a complete throwback. The band was set up on a low stage at the south end of the club's small gymnasium. The backdrop was a simple black curtain. The club's canteen was serving candy and pop.
Homegrown songs
Sure, the hair on some fans was a little greyer than it would have been 35 years ago, and there was an awful lot of forehead on view -- but the difference between now and then is that these fans knew precisely what they had come to see. Homegrown songs, that don't come from Hong Kong. Everyone in Crescentwood Community Centre last night, as well as the 1,500 or so people who flocked to the playing fields outside just to listen, knew every single word during the two-hour show. What songs, too. Running Back to Saskatoon. Laughing. An extremely rare rendition of Talisman featuring just Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman. Undun, with Randy and Burton trading vocals. They kept coming, too. Hit after hit. Clap for the Wolfman. Albert Flasher. Star Baby. Versions of Louie Louie and Wipeout. Yes, these guys are older. But so what? All BS aside, the ultimate test of these reunions is whether the band is up to the job. And the Y2K version of The Guess Who is in fine, fine form.
Cummings proved right from the opening notes of Louie Louie that he's in rare vocal form these days, and that form showed itself through the soaring chorus of Glamour Boy, the long, sustained note he held at the peak of Undun and the barrelhouse, rollicking tale of Albert Flasher, the workshop owner. One of the world's great rock singers sounds as strong as ever. Bachman, too, is obviously relishing playing this music. His solo in a 12-minute version of American Woman was almost five minutes long, and certainly proved why he is one of North America's most influential rock guitarists. The pounding, pulsating beat of Garry Peterson and bassist Jim Kale (who will step aside in favour of Bill Wallace when the band's upcoming summer tour begins proper) gave the band the backbone that carried its songs to the top of the charts 30 years ago. Donnie McDougall kept the harmonies mid-tour sharp and fit in as if he was an original member. Yes, this was a night for the ages. The crowd at the Crescentwood was ecstatic about being able to welcome the boys back to their roots -- the places where they began singin' on their Prairie tunes.
May 29, 2000
Music
Guess Who's Reborn
One of Canada's most successful bands is enjoying a new vogue -- and hitting the road once again
BY NICHOLAS JENNINGS in Winnipeg
On an early May afternoon, on the eastern outskirts of Winnipeg, a spring ritual is under way. Like bears emerging from hibernation, some grey-haired men step out to play their first round of golf of the year. Teeing off under a warm sun, the golfers are oblivious to another ritual taking place nearby. Inside the Transcona Country Club, members of the Canadian rock legend the Guess Who are running through the familiar chords of such classic songs as Undun and American Woman. The original lineup of the group -- middle-aged and reunited for the first time in 17 years for a national tour that opens this week -- is being put through its paces by singer Burton Cummings. "Keep it lazy," he shouts, as the band starts to speed its way through the ballad These Eyes. "Don't rush it." Rain Dance, with its thumping tribal drums and counterpoint vocals, is better. But by the time the band croaks its way through the four-part harmony of Laughing, Cummings becomes exasperated. "OK, that's it for the day," he barks. "Go home -- I don't care if you have to take sleeping pills -- just get some sleep. We need everybody's voices tomorrow." Later, over a soft drink, the perspiring singer concedes that a couple of band members, including guitarist Randy Bachman, are fighting viruses that have affected their voices. Yet he made no apologies for cracking the whip in rehearsal. "The end will justify the means," says Cummings. "There's no way we're going to disappoint with this tour -- we'll be better than people even remember."
Can the reborn Guess Who deliver? The answer will become apparent when the tour starts in St. John's, Nfld., on May 31 -- it winds up in Craven, Sask., on July 15. But make no mistake: the band is already back, bay-bee. Think Austin Powers and The Spy Who Shagged Me, which turned Lenny Kravitz's cover of the Guess Who's anthem-like American Woman into an international hit. Think American Beauty, the Oscar-sweeping film that used the original American Woman in its sound track. Suddenly, the band, one of the most successful acts of the 1960s and '70s, seemed cool again. Then last fall, Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon personally summoned the group to perform at the closing ceremonies of Winnipeg's Pan-Am Games. Although the quartet -- Cummings, 52, Bachman, 56, bassist Jim Kale, 56, and drummer Garry Peterson, who turns 55 on May 26 -- played only four songs, they were embraced as returning home-town heroes, and the seed was planted for a full-scale reunion. Tickets for the tour, which had a sneak preview last week with an intimate performance in a Winnipeg community centre, have been selling fast. Says Larry LeBlanc, Canadian editor for Billboard magazine: "People sense that it may be their last chance to see this piece of Canadian music history in the flesh."
That history has been as fractious as it has been celebrated. Ever since Bachman and Cummings first clashed in the late-1960s over lifestyle preferences (Bachman became a devout Mormon, while Cummings remained a resolute party animal), there have been tensions and issues surrounding the group. Bachman left in 1970, just as the band was hitting the big time, and moved on to even greater heights with his group Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Cummings kept the Guess Who going -- and the hits coming -- through various incarnations until 1975, when he embarked on a successful solo career. But the two left a trail of jealousy, resentment and lawsuits over publishing royalties in their wake. To make matters worse, Kale and Peterson continued touring as the Guess Who (Kale had assumed ownership of the name) with various Bachman and Cummings clones on guitar and vocals, much to their old band mates' chagrin. (Late last week, Kale was forced to bow out of the tour because of "family problems," according to the band's manager, Lorne Saifer, a Winnipeg-born impresario now based in Los Angeles. Onetime Guess Who member Bill Wallace will replace Kale.) But time -- and money -- can heal all wounds. And the Running Back Through Canada Tour, which is being recorded and filmed for CD and video release, is clearly a curative and lucrative undertaking. In separate interviews with the band members (another onetime Guess Who member, guitarist Donny McDougall, is also part of the tour), each musician repeated the phrase "healing process" to describe the reunion, as if the term was some kind of soul-soothing mantra. "It's a chance for the group to tie up unfinished business," says John Einarson, a Winnipeg schoolteacher who has written a book on the Guess Who. "This is the 1970 American Woman tour that Randy never took part in. It's an opportunity for the band to relive it's greatest hurrah." Added Einarson: "If Bachman and Cummings are the Lennon and McCartney of Canadian music, then this tour is every bit as significant to Canada as a Beatles reunion."
That may be stretching things, but as the Guess Who ran through its hits at the country-club retreat earlier this month, the band's legacy as a Can-rock behemoth was on full display. Cummings, a dynamic rock singer-pianist who rivals Elton John, is still in fine vocal form, while Bachman, Kale, Peterson and McDougall made old favourites like These Eyes, recently updated by Canadian rapper Maestro, No Time and American Woman sound as fresh and feisty as the day they were recorded. In a nod to Bachman's post-Guess Who success, BTO hits like Let It Ride and Lookin' Out for No.1 are also being included in the show, but in stripped-down acoustic form. "I'm glad I saw the recent Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young tour," says Cummings, "because it gave me the idea of how to structure our shows. We begin by rocking out and then switch to an acoustic set, where we're going to try and create a coffeehouse atmosphere. Then it's pretty well rock 'n' roll from then on out. Each section should take the fans a little further up the staircase." Like CSNY and the Eagles before them, Bachman, Cummings, Wallace and Peterson know that some cynics will see their reunion as a cash grab by another four fat, greying rock stars who simply want to top up their retirement fund. The band members, of course, see it quite differently. "I don't feel like I'm cashing in on anything," says Bachman, a father of seven who lives with his second wife, former singer Denise McCann, and their 16-year-old daughter on British Columbia's Saltspring Island (his son, Tal Bachman, is currently enjoying a successful pop career of his own, buoyed by the hit She's So High). "I'm celebrating the hits I've had throughout my career, both with this band and with BTO." He added: "Timing is everything. If we had done this 10 years ago, it might have felt tacky. The world wasn't ready for classic rock. But now, with Neil Young and Santana's comeback, there's absolutely nothing tacky about this. It just feels right."
Cummings agrees. "Most reunions are lame," says the singer, who owns homes in Los Angeles and Victoria, and recently bought another in Winnipeg, where he has been spending more time. He is separated from his wife, Cheryl DeLuca. "One or two guys have overdosed, a couple of members have become accountants or truck drivers and then they try to get back together and pick up their instruments and it simply doesn't work. In our case, we're all still alive and we've stayed involved in music and continued playing many of these songs over the years. So it's totally valid." They admit, however, that their 1983 reunion tour was a mistake. Lured by the offer of big money, they undertook seven Canadian concerts despite lingering disputes within the group. "We weren't very friendly on that tour," recalls Cummings. "There were some nights when the vibe was really awful. Not actual fistfights, but terrible arguments." Added Bachman: "We still had baggage and bones to pick, so the tour imploded halfway through. This time, it's all about the music, the songs and recapturing the old magic." The magic was first kindled 35 years ago in the community centres sprinkled throughout Winnipeg. There, in the wake of the "British invasion," teenage boys traded hockey sticks for guitars and began forming rock bands that played on Friday and Saturday nights. Toronto's Neil Young, then living in Winnipeg with his mother, had a group called the Squires. But Bachman, Kale and Peterson, as members of Chad Allan & the Expressions, were the first to score a hit when their frenzied recording of Shakin' All Over topped the charts across Canada in 1965 and went on to sell two million copies worldwide. When Allan left the following year, Bachman quickly recruited Cummings, then a wild, screaming singer with the group the Devrons. Recalls Bachman: "He had an incredibly strong voice and had once desecrated a piano at the Winnipeg Arena while opening for some British band. We needed his kind of sassy, cheeky attitude." After an abortive trip to England, the Guess Who came to the attention of Toronto producer Jack Richardson, who saw the group perform on the CBC program Let's Go. So impressed was Richardson that he mortgaged his home to finance the recording of the 1969 album Wheatfield Soul, its title a reference to the band's so-called Prairie sound. After the album's first single, These Eyes, topped the charts, the band never looked back. The next album, Canned Wheat, contained three more Bachman-Cummings hits, including Laughing, No Time and Undun. But it wasn't until 1970's American Woman that the Guess Who achieved pop supremacy. The fuzz-guitar-drenched title track shot to No. 1 in the United States, where it unseated the Beatles for three straight weeks. The hits kept coming: No Sugar Tonight, Albert Flasher, Share the Land, Rain Dance and Clap for the Wolfman.
According to Billboard's LeBlanc, the band opened countless doors for the many Canadian acts that followed, including Lighthouse, Motherlode, the Poppy Family and Five Man Electrical Band. "They were small-town guys who became stars from coast to coast without a national touring circuit," says LeBlanc. "And even after they became known internationally, they essentially remained small-town guys, always rooted in their community. In that respect, they were quintessentially Canadian." Jeff Bishop, whose family owns Winnipeg's Sound Exchange record store, agrees. "They gave us an identity," says Bishop, who is currently turning the entire Portage Avenue store into a Guess Who shrine, complete with photos, albums and rare memorabilia, as a display of civic pride leading up to the group's June 30 concert there. "I was born in 1967, and my whole life has had a sound track supplied by the Guess Who. Those songs tell us something about who we are." That was certainly the case for the three young members of the band Wide Mouth Mason, who grew up in Saskatoon. Cummings says that when he met the group at last year's inaugural Prairie Music Awards, where the Guess Who was inducted into the Prairie Music Hall of Fame, Wide Mouth Mason's Shaun Verreault told him how much Cummings' song Running Back to Saskatoon meant to him. "We're all Prairie boys, born and raised," says Cummings. "We have that remote feeling in the winter and that all enters into the way we play and write. The guys in Wide Mouth Mason share that with us. They, too, have wheatfield soul." Which is why, after jamming late into the wee hours with the trio at a Toronto bar, following an appearance at the Farm Aid benefit this spring, Cummings broached the possibility of the band opening for the Guess Who on its summer tour.
As the golf balls fly outside the Transcona Country Club, the members of the Guess Who and the crew try to concentrate on getting themselves ready for the tour. Aside from rehearsals, arrangements are still being made for sound equipment, accommodation and merchandise in each of the tour's two-dozen venues. Manager Saifer seems to have a cellular phone surgically attached to his head. "When you see these guys onstage," he's raving to someone on the phone, "it's almost like time has been turned back." Bachman, overhearing the comment, nods his head. "It's true," says Bachman, who describes the Pan-Am experience as something akin to Viagra. "After that, I felt 25 again, that I could conquer the world, go on the road forever and play guitar 24 hours a day and never sleep. The other guys felt that, too." He adds: "A few years ago, Neil Young told me that the minute we stop doing this, we're not living our lives as they were intended. And he was right. This is what we were born to do."
Guess Who conquers time
Band turns clock back for rocker at community club
Sun, May 21, 2000
By Morley Walker
THEY came. They played. They conquered. Eat your heart out, Russell Crowe.
Winnipeg's favourite rock'n'roll gladiators, the Guess Who, vanquished the enemy Time last night with a triumphant trip down memory lane at the Crescentwood Community Centre as they warmed up for their coming national tour.
"People from all over the place are here," lead singer Burton Cummings said, surveying the crowd of close to 350 who stood bopping and clapping in the air-conditioned gymnasium.
"I came all the way from the north end tonight."
The four time-ravaged warriors, Cummings, Randy Bachman, Garry Peterson and Jim Kale, put years of rancour behind them to blow the rafters off the Corydon Avenue venue with a rapturous set of rock standards and Guess Who hits, recalling their days as stars of the Winnipeg community-club circuit.
"I love you, Burton," one matronly woman screamed at the back of the room.
"It's too late to have my children, but you can have my grandchildren."
Introduced by KY 58 disc jockey Gary McLean, the boys took to the stage at 8:40, opening with a rollicking version of Louie Louie.
Next came an old Deverons ballad, Blue is the Night, followed by Guess Who tunes Runnin' Back to Saskatoon, Clap for the Wolfman, Albert Flasher and Star Baby, American Woman.
Cummings, clad in a Jim Morrison sweatshirt, recalled the band's first Crescentwood dates in the early '60s, when his mother drove band members to the gigs because none of them was old enough to drive.
"I remember it fondly," he said.
At press time, they had played nearly 30 songs, including encores of No Time and Share the Land, American Woman, and a version of Follow Your Daughter Home, featuring Cummings on flute.
Last night's show, which also featured sideman Donnie McDougall, was a warmup for the group's 25-date national reunion tour, which begins May 31 in St. John's, Nfld.
The age range of the crowd was surprisingly diverse. There were more than a handful of children and lots of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
Two hundred people gained admittance by winning a draw to buy $5 tickets held yesterday at 5 p.m. The rest of the audience was made up of music industry people, friends of the band and media.
Speakers set up outdoors pumped the music to the crowd of about 1,500 who listened in the field west of the community centre.
Inside the club during the show, the air quickly grew hot and the mood celebratory.
Molson-muscled men and love-handled women danced and sang along as Cummings, in fine voice, belted out famous numbers like Laughing and No Sugar Tonight, songs that made the band one of the top-selling rock acts in the world in the early '70s.
The show marked the first and last appearance by Kale, the group's original bass player, who has dropped out of the tour because of personal and family problems. On the coming tour, Kale is being replaced by Bill Wallace, a former Guess Who member who had his first stint with the band from 1972 to 1975.
The tour, which is being hyped as potentially the highest grossing show this summer in Canada, officially stops in Winnipeg on June 30 for a sold-out concert at CanWest Global Park.
The Guess Who, Canada's first international rock superstars, began life as Chad Allen & the Reflections in 1962, with Kale, Bachman and Peterson in the lineup.
Guess Who bassist Kale bowing out of national tour
Fri, May 19, 2000
By Bartley Kives
THE original
Guess Who will head out on tour without its original bass player, Jim Kale.Kale, 56, is bowing out of the legendary Winnipeg rock band's 25-date, seven-week Canadian tour to deal with what Guess Who manager Lorne Saifer describes as "family problems."
The bassist still plans to join The Guess Who's remaining original members -- singer Burton Cummings, guitarist Randy Bachman and drummer Garry Peterson -- as well as sideman Donnie McDougall on stage at tomorrow's tour preview show at Crescentwood Community Centre.
But after that, Kale will be replaced by Bill Wallace, a former Guess Who member who had his first stint with the band from 1972 to 1975.
"When you have matters weighing on your mind, you find it difficult to focus," manager Saifer said in an interview yesterday. He described Kale's departure as a mutual decision involving the rest of the band.
Friday May 19, 2000
Guess Who less one?
Health could keep Kale off band tour: sources
By JOHN KENDLE
Entertainment Editor, Winnipeg Sun
The reunited Guess Who may hit the road this summer without original bass player Jim Kale, The Sun has learned. According to several music industry sources, Kale may step aside from the Winnipeg band's upcoming North American tour for health reasons, a story band manager Lorne Saifer would not confirm yesterday. "I'm hoping Jim does the tour," Saifer said. Reached at his home, Kale would only say that a reporter had come "at a very bad time." Asked if he was going to work yesterday, the 54-year-old musician replied: "That's a very good question, isn't it? "I'm sorry. I can't say more. I'll talk to you at some other time."
If Kale is unable to tour -- which may be the case even if he performs at the band's preview show tomorrow night at Crescentwood Community Centre -- sources say his replacement will be former band member Bill Wallace, who played with the group from 1972 to 1975.
Wallace, 51, was noncommittal when contacted by The Sun. "Right now I'm teaching music," said the R.B. Russell High School instructor from his job at the inner-city school. "We're making kids' albums, rap and rock and just having some fun." Wallace, a former member of Winnipeg trio Brother, which also included now-deceased Guess Who guitarist Kurt Winter, initially joined The Guess Who just prior to the well-received Live at the Paramount album in 1972. He played on the #10, Artificial Paradise, Road Food, Flavours, Power in the Music and Born in Canada albums before the group disbanded in 1975. According to recent published reports, Kale refused to enter an alcohol rehabilitation program prior to beginning preparations for the upcoming tour. In August 1998, the bassist spent a night in the Winnipeg drunk tank after an incident on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Winnipeg. At the time, he said he had mistakenly mixed alcohol with prescription medication he was taking for anxiety. Police said he had acted "belligerent" during the flight. The Guess Who's Running Back Through Canada tour begins May 31 in St. John's, Nfld., and stops in Winnipeg June 30 for a sold-out show at CanWest Global Park. It is expected to become one of the top-grossing tours of the Canadian concert season. The band -- which also includes original singer Burton Cummings, guitarist Randy Bachman, drummer Garry Peterson and singer/guitarist Donnie McDougall, who was a member of the group in the '70s -- will perform an intimate preview show tomorrow night at Crescentwood. The 200 available tickets for that concert will be distributed by lottery at 5 p.m., tomorrow afternoon in the Crescentwood parking lot.
Those wanting tickets can enter the lottery by donating a non-perishable food item to Winnipeg Harvest after noon tomorrow at the community centre. Donors must be in attendance at the draw to win the opportunity to purchase a pair of tickets for $4.99 each.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, May 16, 2000
Guess Who preview tickets up for grabs
By JOHN KENDLE -- Winnipeg Sun
WINNIPEG - The toughest ticket in town goes on sale Saturday.
Winnipeg rock legends The Guess Who confirmed yesterday that the band will indeed play a special preview show at Crescentwood Community Centre at 8 p.m. Saturday. But you'll have to be lucky -- make that very lucky -- to get in to see the gig that will bring the band back to the community clubs where it launched its career. The capacity of the community hall at 1170 Corydon Ave. is just 250 people, so the 200 tickets to be sold (50 passes have been reserved for guests and family of the band members) will be allocated Saturday afternoon via a special lottery. To register for the draw which will determine who can purchase the $4.99 tickets, entrants must bring a non-perishable food item to Crescentwood after noon on Saturday. Donors' names will be registered and drawn at random at 5 p.m. Draw winners must be present in order to purchase their tickets.
'INTENSE DEMAND'
"I expect demand to be intense," said House of Blues Concerts spokesman Paul Haagenson. "There will be no opening act, so the show will be all-Guess Who all-night. I think there'll be a lot of people who can't wait to get in." Indeed there are -- the Sun offices received several calls yesterday from fans who were desperately seeking ticket information. The band has been rehearsing in Transcona for its Running Back Through Canada tour since May 1, and Saturday's show will mark the first time the four original band members -- Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson -- have performed a full show together since 1983. Early '70s band member Donnie McDougall has been added to the lineup for the upcoming tour. The Running Back Through Canada tour begins May 31 in St. John's, Nfld., and stops in Winnipeg June 30 at CanWest Global Park. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, May 7, 2000
Blasts from the Past
The Guess Who discuss the good old days - and the better days to come
By JOHN KENDLE
Winnipeg Sun
On the day The Guess Who reconvened in Winnipeg to rehearse for their upcoming 77-day, 23-city Canadian tour -- which stops in Winnipeg June 30 -- Sun entertainment editor John Kendle conducted the first interview with the group, courtesy of manager Lorne Saifer. The band discussed the thrill of reuniting and how they're enjoying the wellspring of new interest in the group. Today, Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson look back to the past -- and ahead to the future.
Sun: Talk about your favourite moments of the early days of The Guess Who, the first five or six years you were together.
Randy: I think going to England in '67 was a thrill of my life at the time. We had grown up so attuned to the pipeline, and to go there in '67 when everything was happening -- Cream had just started, Hendrix had just started and the Stones were going.
The trip was a disaster, but I just had the greatest time. I've been there since with a No. 1 record and limos and Daimlers driving around, but it was never as much fun as walking and going on the tube and going around Soho. Then (after) coming home, and being in debt, getting that CBC show (Let's Go, a Canadian version of American Bandstand) regimented us into working together and recording and copying the hit parade. We learned everything there, and we were a production team. For us, those two years of CBC were a big turning point in the band. Burton and I started writing together and I think it really brought us together.
Burton: It's obvious and it's still a thrill for me, but getting that first gold record (for These Eyes in 1969) and holding it in my hand, and being on American Bandstand, which is something I'd only fantasized about, really, until that point -- that was huge.
There was a very special day, too, when we were touring and touring and touring, and No Time had already been a hit, Laughing, These Eyes and Undun had already been major hit records, then American Woman came out and every Wednesday was when we got the advance chart listings for Billboard and it cracked the Top 10 and went to No. 7 and went to No. 4 and No. 3 and then the following week it knocked off either the Jackson Five or The Beatles, it was either ABC or Let it Be. When we found out that it gone No. 1 in Billboard, that was quite an amazing moment. The four of us got together in a hotel room in Milwaukee and we all hugged each other. We stood in a circle on the bed with our arms around each other's shoulders and we bounced on the bed and screamed and yelled ourselves hoarse until that bed cracked. That, to me, was a lot of self-validation for us, I think. Being from a remote place like Winnipeg, the closest major centre to the south is Minneapolis, the closest major centre to the east is Toronto and the closest city of any ilk is Regina. To have that No. 1 single ... I remember carrying that Billboard for weeks to the pool hall, to parties, to the pubs for two or three weeks, it was amazing. Going to England that first time was pretty astounding because we were there at the height of Carnaby Street and Twiggy and The Beatles. I remember being in a club one night in Soho called the Bag O' Nails and I was playing the slot machines and having a brown ale and there was this guy standing next to me. He had long hair and I didn't take much notice of who he was, so I played the slot for 20 minutes and then I looked at the guy ... and it was Bill Wyman. This was 1967, and the Stones were like gods at that point. It was a very exciting time. I have fond memories of the TV show, as well. We were really tackling a great amount of different music. We had to learn 10 or 11 songs every week for two years. You'd finish one show and rehearse for the next. It made us better -- I know that my playing and awareness was certainly raised. Larry Brown, the producer of the TV show, said one time, "Well Randy, you and Burton are writing songs. You have a national forum for your songs, play me a couple of the original ones and if I like them, you can throw the odd one in instead of just doing Donovan again or Van Morrison again or whatever." One of those tunes that we did was These Eyes and Jack Richardson (longtime Guess Who producer) happened to be watching the television show that week and loved the song so much he mortgaged his house and flew us down to New York City for the first big recording session that became Wheatfield Soul. That, to me, was a huge milestone, being flown down there, recording near Times Square -- that was a pretty magical time. Later on the business took over and the grind and the gruelling schedule. God, I remember in 1972 we released three albums in one year. By today's standards that's astounding -- people work on one album for three years. It got to be more of a treadmill later, but my fondest memories are of the early days, when we were a little more naive, a little more innocent and learning to be better. Those are the days I look back on most fondly of all.
Jim: The big one for me was the Seattle Pop Festival. We watched 80,000 people stand up and respond to American Woman, which we hadn't recorded yet -- that was pretty far out. I remember Place des Arts in Montreal as a great gig. Varsity Stadium in Toronto, where they burned (an American) flag. One of my personal favourites was Burton and I rolling through Times Square in a limousine, looking at our first $50,000 cheque from RCA -- that was fun!
Garry: Those are all highlights. But I've always loved to play, so for me, the creating and the rehearsal of new material and going into a studio to see what you could come up with -- there's nothing like that for me. For me it's always been about the music -- and that is very, very special to me. The playing and the creating was great.
Sun: What can we expect and what can you expect from The Guess Who in the future?
Garry: That'll be up to The Guess Who. I don't think that there's any far-reaching plans, we're going into rehearsal and we'll see. I'd love to tour the States with this band, which we didn't do on the last reunion tour. And I can tell you from personal experience, the people down there are just waiting.
Jim: Speaking only for myself, I think that you can contemplate anything and everything for the next three years, and after that it'll just be plums off the tree as they present themselves. I think we're looking at three years of concerted effort and, who knows, maybe I'm even right, or accurate. That's what I think's going to happen. As far as the folks are concerned -- they'll get bang for the buck.
Burton: We haven't started yet and I'm already tuned up. We're looking at the entire Guess Who catalogue as an entity and these five people are hopefully going to do justice to that great catalogue, that great musical legacy. The songs are going to sound better than ever. I can definitely foresee a new album out of all of this. I think we'd be very foolish if we didn't think one studio album would surface out of all of this, and definitely a live album. We're going to be recording a lot of stuff at soundchecks, perhaps some stuff by other artists. When we plugged in at the Walker for Pan Am rehearsals we did Moby Grape stuff and Cream stuff and Hendrix stuff and old Grass Roots songs that we used to do years and years ago and the fun factor was very high. I think the sky's the limit. It's certainly not going to stop after Canada and I think once we move into the States, that's four times the amount of touring in Canada. By that time, we'll be up and running and so well-oiled and I can see Australia. After that, who knows? There are going to be television shows and there's some talk of filming this, too. Every week that goes by we get some more good news. We've got a month of rehearsals, so by the time we hit the stage in Newfoundland it'll be wonderful.
Randy: I believe the amount of Guess Who fans out there is in the zillions and I don't think one of them will be disappointed. I think they're very lucky that we're one of the very few bands from the '60s and '70s that can get together with the original guys. In a sense we're a new band. We don't know what this tour is going to be like, it's gonna be day by day and week by week. We have this magnet that's drawn us here and we have this three-year dream, and I have this special feeling inside me that it's going to be a very special time for me. The songs are great, and Burton has the set sorted out so that it's not going to be just a night of familiar hits. There'll be album stuff and songs that people thought they'd never hear again. I can't wait -- and I think the fans will love it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, May 6, 2000
American Booty
Three decades later, The Guess Who celebrates a new year of the Woman
By JOHN KENDLE
Winnipeg Sun
On the day The Guess Who reconvened in Winnipeg to rehearse for their upcoming 77-day, 23-city Canadian tour -- which stops in Winnipeg June 30 -- Sun entertainment editor John Kendle conducted the first interview with the group, courtesy of manager Lorne Saifer. The band discussed the thrill of reuniting and how they're enjoying the wellspring of new interest in the group. Today in part 2 of our three-part series, Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson talk about the renewed success of American Woman and the upcoming tour.
Sun: Your music has resurfaced in pop culture in the past couple of years, basically through movies such as Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, American Beauty and Jackie Brown. How does that make you guys feel?
Garry: I saw our version of American Woman in a Castrol GTX ad a couple of days ago. Tommy Hilfiger has a thing going -- so you can almost say it's the year of American Woman. Interestingly, you can't go anywhere in North America and say you were with The Guess Who and drop a few song titles without people going, "Oh, really!" For some reason, in our past history, perhaps because the promotion was never really done properly, people didn't connect The Guess Who with all those records and you tell them and they go wacky. Now, though, you can travel all over North America and hear the great songs Burton and Randy wrote.
Jim: It had to to happen, it was inevitable. Sooner or later a song called American Woman, in North America with the whole retro thing and demographics being what they are, was going to happen the way it has. The Pan Am thing and the movie thing have come together at the appropriate time and now -- with the multitude of things that have shaped the lives of the guys, including the regrets and the unfinished business, the unfulfilled dreams and unfulfilled promises -- we've got the shot again, and here we are. It had to be, it was on the agenda. I said "never" many times, but what did I know?
Burton: Boy, American Woman has really had a good run the last four or five years. It started with Cable Guy, with that crazy karaoke scene where Jim Carrey invites all the loons over to his apartment and some old guy gets up and does American Woman with a sort of a Yiddish accent. Then it happened in The Spy Who Shagged Me, and we knew it was going to be in the movie, because we had to do the deal upfront, but nobody knew it was going to be a certifiable smash hit record by Lenny Kravitz. It's one thing to have your song in a film. That's nice. But it's another thing when it surfaces out of the film and charts in about 27 countries around the world. It was a monstrous record, and it redirected the focus of many, many people from the MTV generation back toward the original Guess Who. Then, to me, the icing on the cake was American Beauty. I went to see that here in Winnipeg, and I knew the song was going to be in the movie but I had no idea how it was featured, or how prominently it would be used. Then Kevin Spacey gets in the car and shoves a cassette in the deck and starts singing along with me -- and along with Randy's riffs at first. Then it swept the Oscars, so that was a serious piece of immortality for American Woman. On Oscar night I was watching with bated breath, and sure enough, the film came through. It says something for the songs. Undun, again, was featured in the Jackie Brown film, in a prominent scene with Robert De Niro and Bridget Fonda having a fight and Undun is playing all the way through it. She puts on an old LP with Undun on it. This to me is very exciting. It shows the strength and power of the songs. There's some kind of magic fairy dust in the songs or they wouldn't be used in these great films with these wonderful performances surrounding them. It's very flattering to have done something 30 years ago and see it surface in the movie of the year.
I concur with what Jim said. Maybe it was meant to be and this was meant to be. It's all timed so perfectly now, because it seems tickets for the tour are selling extremely well, far better than we imagined. It won't stop in Canada, it will definitely continue on into the States and, I would even venture to say, possibly even Australia. We were very successful down there. Once we're up and running I don't think anybody's gonna want to see this fall apart too soon. It'll be gruelling. We're a little older and it's going to be tougher, especially on me, singing. I've been doing a one-man show, essentially slower songs and easier ballads, for six years, so I've got to be taking my vitamins this summer. But I'm looking forward to it very much. I get an extra energy from being around Jim and Garry and Randy, an extra charge and surge that I don't have. I think it's wonderful that these films have redirected the focus of millions of people back toward the group called The Guess Who. I really have been incredibly flattered by it all. And personally, as the singer, I was flattered that Lenny Kravitz kind of copied some of my ad lib vocal riffs at the end, for him to do that was flattering. It's kind of a nice stroke for everybody's egos, I guess. It's the perfect time to tour.
Randy: I was flattered that my guitar part was so hard Lenny couldn't even play it on his record -- just joking. I remember the first time I heard it. I got it in the mail and I was at my son Tal's house. I heard it three times and I really liked it, because, to that time, I'd heard four or five or six other versions of the song by heavy metal bands -- The Almighty, Krokus, the Butthole Surfers -- and they were all The Guess Who to the thousandth power, the same riffs. So for Lenny to reinterpret it, doing a little key change in the middle, was incredible. The Timbaland mix has a few extra drum loops, a little extra synthesizer and more background vocals, taking on a whole new '90s thing. To have my daughter, who's 16, and all her friends really love this song -- all of a sudden I was hot and happening. Personally, I left this band in May of 1970 and I was cheated out of the American Woman No. 1 victory tour. But now, exactly 30 years later, this is the American Woman No. 1 victory tour for me. It's a little late, I have a few aches -- but to get out there and rock with these guys and do this song that is so hot right now ... it's going to be great for me to do the 1970 tour right now.
Sun: How long a set will you be doing? What songs will you be doing and, like the '83 tour, will solo material be involved?
Burton: I have a proposed set list. A lot of it depends on whether I can do justice to the songs vocally every night. I don't want to give away too much right now, because then it won't be too surprising and interesting and exciting for people the nights of the show. We have X number of songs that we're obligated to do -- obviously people will be hearing These Eyes and Laughing and Undun and No Time and No Sugar and American Woman and Share the Land -- but there will be some other things, too, some album cuts. I don't particularly want to do any Burton Cummings solo stuff at all, partly because of the fact I've been doing that for the last five-and-a-half years and I've had enough of that stuff, but also because there's more than enough Guess Who stuff. There's such a great musical legacy that The Guess Who has. There are dozens and dozens of recognizable songs. While I was in the band for the 14 or 15 albums on RCA, there were some 240 to 250 songs that were released. Out of that well of material, it's easy to put together a two-and-a-half hour show. I do want to have Randy sing a couple of things he's written, Let it Ride and Lookin' Out for Number One, because they're great songs and because it gives me a rest for five minutes vocally, which is a luxury I don't have otherwise. I haven't had another singer in any band I was in for the last 10 or 12 years. And we'd be silly if we didn't do Takin' Care of Business -- it's an anthem.
But as far as Stand Tall or My Own Way to Rock, well, there's Saskatoon to think about, or Guns, Guns, Guns. There's Heartbroken Bopper and Glamour Boy. I think it'll be well-rounded and I think we'll be giving the people really what they want to hear. If I had the pipes to do it, we could do a four-hour show.
Randy: I've been sitting for the last couple of weeks listening to songs that I had no part of that I feel very fortunate just to be able to play -- Kurt Winter songs and Greg Leskiw songs ...
Garry: I wish Kurt were here.
Randy: I was sitting there with my engineer making a CD and I realized that the stuff they wrote was just so incredible, and I wasn't even there. The stuff they wrote, Running Back to Saskatoon, Guns, Guns, Guns, Glamour Boy, Sour Suite -- Burton did an incredible thing with the band when I left.
Burton: We did a Bachman/ Cummings thing in '87 and he played a lot of those tunes and then in the '83 reunion as well, with the four of us sitting here right now. He did Glamour Boy, and I think we were doing Guns, and Rain Dance -- songs that we did after Randy had left. As I look at it, I don't break down in my head who was on what anymore. I just look at it as The Guess Who, the musical legacy that is there. I wish our dear friend Kurt Winter could be part of this; unfortunately he left us a couple of years ago. But he'll be with us in spirit onstage. I just look at it as an overall great batch of songs, and we're blessed and lucky to go out and play those tunes.
Sun: Donnie McDougall was in the band in the early '70s and he'll be playing with you on this tour. What will his role be?
Jim: He'll be playing the second guitar and providing the second, really strong vocal. Donnie came in essentially to replace Burton. It was going to be a well-planned exit of Burton into his solo career, and Donnie was a natural to assume the role. So Donnie is going to play a very strong role, to provide a strong role. When it came up, it was a natural, right out of the chute.
Randy: Donnie was playing in my band for two years, playing some of the same songs. He's one of the guys. It's great to have four originals and one guy who is an alumnus of the band after I left.
Burton: One of the great things of having Donnie along is it's valid. He was on Star Baby, he was on Saskatoon, he was on the #10 album, he was on all that great stuff on Artificial Paradise. He's the perfect guy, because he's been playing in Randy's band and playing on these things. Donnie and I got together at my place with an acoustic guitar and my old upright piano and just started going through vocal lines, on things like Road Food, and it sounded great, just the two of us. So if two guys with an acoustic and a beat-up old piano can sound that good, the band will be just rockin'. It made just perfect sense. I suggested this to the guys at one of the first meetings about touring, and there was no negativity at all. It's a perfect progression and he's a natural fit. In fact, I've known Donnie longer than I've known these guys, since I was about 15, from our days playing in rival bands. On our nights off we'd go and see The Guess Who, because they were always the measuring stick, they were so much better than anybody else at the time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, May 5, 2000
The Boys are Back
The Guess Who is shakin' all over & The Sun got the first interview. Here's part one of our exclusive chat with the reunited rock legends
By JOHN KENDLE
Winnipeg Sun
Randy Bachman and Garry Peterson have just stopped off planes from the West Coast and from North Carolina, respectively. Jim Kale has driven himself over from his St. Boniface home. Burton Cummings, who's been in town for the past two weeks, was the first to arrive. It's the Sunday before rehearsals begin in earnest for The Guess Who's Running Back Through Canada tour and the band is at KY58's new studio in Osborne Village to tape some station IDs and conduct an interview. As these four middle-aged guys greet each other, they smile, shake hands and make small talk about drum sets, property sales and kids. Cummings, 52, and Bachman, 56, great each other with a friendly, "Hey, buddy!" Peterson, 54, offers hugs and pats on the back all round. Kale, 56, cracks jokes as they hurry up and wait for a technician to get things ready. Each man looks happy, content. They know they're here to regroup the band which has been one of the biggest influences on their lives.
The business of being The Guess Who is on again ...
Sun: You guys got together last summer for the first time in 16 years to perform four songs at the closing ceremonies of the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg. Can you explain how that came about?
Randy: Well, we heard that the Pan Am Games was going on and waited to see the lineup and got invited to do the show. Quite late, I would say, in the scheme of things. We were all going in different directions, so it took same adjusting to get us all aiming at and moving to the same target but once it started to come together, I think we all felt a genuine desire to do it, this being the home town and the fact that some of us have moved away. Ultimately I think it was just something that was destined to happen. To be asked and to be so far apart at first and then to have it come together like that and for it to be such an incredible experience for us -- and from the feedback I got, also for the audience -- it was just a fantastic experience.
Burton: The whole Pan Am thing was emotional for me, as I'm sure it was for the other three here, because it was hometown night. It was a very, very big event -- internationally it was being covered by every country involved in the Games, so there were about 300 million people watching us that night. So, just the fact that we are a Winnipeg band, that we were all born and raised here, learned how to play here, came up here through the community clubs and schools and churches -- the circuit, you know, from the '60s -- it was a great night for Winnipeg, as it was for the band. I think what's more exciting this time is that we're not underneath the Pan American umbrella. This time the impetus is solely from the band, and so the focus is on the band this time, whereas we were part of a big event before, but I think it went beyond anything any of us expected. When we reconvened in October at the Prairie Music Awards, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, we talked about this again because since Pan Am there had been some offers and suggestions that perhaps we get together and do a bona fide tour. It just kinda happened and just fell into place. Definitely the seed for this current tour and whatever happens now was planted at the Pan Am Games.
Jim: Well, along come the Games, and somebody says we want the hometown boys, and they contacted Marty Kramer, Randy's tour manager, and I think within 30 minutes they had it done. It worked fine for us -- it certainly worked fine for me. It was a very thrilling, very exciting evening, and it was the only time I ever got my picture on the front page of the local press. If you're into synchronicity or fatalism it was in the cards. It was in the cards and our hand came up -- and now we're here.
Garry: I guess somebody had a good idea. 'Wouldn't it be nice to have the original Guess Who play at the Pan Am Games?' I thought it was a stroke of genius, actually. Every guy in this band loves to entertain people, and we've played in so many diverse places in Winnipeg -- from roofs of A&Ws to flatbeds in front of Winnipeg Stadium -- that we really feel this is our home and we'd play here again anytime. I believe spiritually it was a chance for us to come back together and there's definitely a reason for it.
Sun: What did it feel like onstage that night? After a week's rehearsal you came onstage and blew away 40,000 people.
Randy: It seemed to go by in a split-second, but the feelings that I had being onstage then with these guys I can't put into words. And I also can't put into words the feeling that I got not just from us but also the audience. It was just a great feeling. I know that when it was over I said I felt like I was 25 again -- Burton said he felt like he was 18, I didn't feel quite 18, but wow -- it was like a time-travel thing. You can't get the guys who won the Stanley Cup or the Grey Cup or the Rose Bowl back together 20 or 30 years later to play that game. But to get us together to play our game and have the audience there to go hurrah was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. So, that's why I'm here again, searching for this thing that we get when we all get together.
Burton: It was very emotional that night. I remember being overwhelmed when we walked out. Like Randy said, it went by in like a millisecond for me. During one of the songs I leaned over and whispered in Jim's ear, "How about doing this a few times a year for the rest of our lives?" and we had a big laugh right onstage. You can actually see it on camera. I watched the footage later and you see when I go over and whisper to him. We were just having fun. All the old nicknames were resurfacing and all the old shenanigans from when I had just joined first and I was 18 and very green and unaware of what was about to happen to us. All the feelings came back to me of joining a band that was already famous. Those feelings of early 1966 when I had just joined the band -- it was a very Winnipeg evening, I think. You could really feel that buzz coming from the people in the stands, that the boys had come home to play. I mean, Garry's been living in North Carolina, Randy's been out on the West Coast, I've been back and forth between L.A. and here, Jim's been all over North America. The four of us hadn't been here together for years and years -- so it was very emotional. We got that wonderful 20 minutes and before we knew it, it was over and there was a bit of a letdown. The week of rehearsals was great, and then it zoomed by and it was over. I think possibly that has led us to reconvene and do this for real and put a real good two-and-a-half hour show together and go out and do it. Judging by the initial response and the ticket sales I think we've definitely made the correct decision. It's going to be a very exciting summer -- it really is.
Jim: Onstage it was all too quick. But for me it was fun to go out and show people that this is the real deal. This is not the oldtimers' hockey game. Everybody's active, everybody can play, everybody can sing -- this is not the mothball club. One guy said to me, "I didn't think you could pull it off," and I said, "Well hey, everybody's working -- we didn't have to throw away our crutches to get onstage." It worked very, very well. It was a taste and a taste wasn't enough -- so here we are.
Garry: We've played so much music together that only doing three or four numbers would be selfishly cheating ourselves. I kinda wanted to play more that night. For me -- having played with the other Guess Who band that was touring in the States for so many years -- I don't think there was a night that went by onstage where I didn't start thinking "Where's the rest of the band?" It kind of got to be a surreal trip for me. It was a question every night. So, it was special for me to do it again properly.
Sun: So, again, how was it that this feeling prompted you to get together now and do a proper, 77-day, 23-city tour?
Randy: I think we all have -- at least I have -- been playing these songs for 30 years, a couple hundred nights a year, and it's not the same. As good as I felt about the band I had and the band they had and Burton's been playing solo and with different bands -- it's not the same. I remember in rehearsal at the Walker Theatre, somebody -- a monitor guy -- came up to me and said, "Can you hear Garry and Jim?" And I said "No, I don't need to. I know every note they're singing and playing." I knew what they were doing and I don't think they needed to hear me or Burton. It's nice to hear the guys, but you don't need to. I don't need to know the harmony's there -- it's there. There's this relaxed feeling that comes with being with the guys who created the stuff, so to recreate it is easy. To get somebody else to copy a certain part, you're always on the edge. It's like going home. Playing with these guys is like going home for that comfort food.
Burton: I've heard Randy say it in interviews and I've said it in interviews about him ... when Randy's wailing on guitar I always seem to sing a little bit better, and he always says that when I'm there singing with him he always plays a little bit better. Whether it's better or different, I don't know. I had a little taste of it at the flood-relief concert in 1997. Jim and Garry weren't here at that time. I was doing a little bit of a solo set there, and Randy was doing a set with Fred Turner, some old BTO stuff -- and then Randy and I got together and we did Undun and American Woman. But here again, I sing those things differently when Randy's playing guitar and he said to me after that show, "You know, I haven't played American Woman that well for ages. With other guys singing it it's not quite the same." It's the same thing with Jim and Garry, the rhythm section that was in the band when I first joined the band -- there's a feel to that, a sense to that which is almost intangible, but it makes me try a little harder because they were the ones that coaxed me into the band, away from my first band, The Deverons. I had a lot to learn. I was very green, very nervous, very naive. I learned a lot from these guys, from the basic things of Jim Kale taking me to the post office to get my first passport when I was 18. Milestones in your life that can only occur once are what the four of us share. When you've had a No. 1 single on Billboard together, when you've gone on American Bandstand with Dick Clark for the first time together, when you got those first gold records -- those are milestones that will never be recaptured. We may do a new album that could go quadruple zillion platinum but it won't capture the same feeling as getting that gold single for These Eyes from Dick Clark. A lot of firsts for me are involved when I get together with these guys here, and I think reliving some of that is almost like cheating time. There's a comfort zone I have with these guys and, you know, they're all a little older than me and when I joined the band, I did a lot of my growing up with these guys. I hit the road and I hadn't even left home yet -- when I joined this band I was still living at home with my mother and grandmother. So, getting together with these guys is like recapturing some of that, and not enough of us are lucky in life to do that.
Jim: You don't have to sweat what anybody else is doing onstage, because it's there. Because we've all been playing, everybody is a better player now, they're more accomplished, more proficient. When you don't have to worry about or think about or second guess what somebody else is playing when they haven't been involved in the original recording or in the development of it, it's freedom, and you can be what you were, what your are at the moment and what you are capable of being. That's what's great about this business. You don't get worse, you don't atrophy. As long as you're active, you get better. You can be what you were and what you have become.
Garry: We all grew up in this band. Burton and I are only two years apart. We went through divorces, family tragedies, audits, bankruptcies -- this is like being married. We have a great deal of emotion tied up in this band -- all of us -- and that is often reflected in the music. It inspires you. I listen to some of our stuff and I, quite frankly, am ashamed by some of the stuff I played on record. But I was young and that was what I was -- I'm way better now. That's just the way life progresses ...
Quick Note - There's a
U.S. listing for the "Original Guess Who " at "Rockin' In The Hills" in North Central North Dakota, Sunday, July 2, 2000. Tickets for the 4 day event are $80 and some of the first day tickets are only $15. Check out Rockin' The Hills. for more details.Monday, April 3, 2000
Fans go for the real deal
Seats added for Guess Who
By ROBERT WILLIAMS -- Winnipeg Sun
WINNIPEG - Didn't get tickets to The Guess Who concert? Well, don't come "undun," there are still some left. Tickets for the June 30 show at CanWest Global Park sold out in only a few hours after going on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, but another 400 seats were added at about 5 p.m., confirmed Kevin Donnelly, Western vice-president of House of Blues Concerts Canada.
"They're angled seats; if the concert was at the arena we'd say they were side seats," he said, adding people will still be able to see and hear the band. TicketMaster still had some tickets in Section C available late yesterday afternoon. About 10,000 tickets for the reunion concert were eagerly snapped up by Winnipeggers on Saturday in about four hours. There were no other sell-outs in any of the other 22 cities the band is playing, but tickets were selling well across the country, Donnelly said. "I think it will be a point of reality sinking in with people that these are the four original guys," he said.
'ORIGINAL BALL OF WAX'
The cross-country Guess Who tour is different from many reunion tours because it features the original members who have continued to make music, and not a bunch of replacements no one knows, Donnelly said. "This is the original ball of wax and I think what people saw at the Pan Am Games is that Burton Cummings is still as great a singer as he ever was," he said. "I think people recognize these guys are veterans -- they're survivors." The quartet of singer-keyboardist Cummings, guitarist Randy Bachman, bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson -- along with post-Cummings band member Donnie McDougall -- kick off their tour in late May in St. John's Nfld. The band is playing a mixture of hockey arenas in bigger cities, and smaller venues with capacities of about 5,000 people. The band will play Brandon's Keystone Centre on July 14. Rumours of The Guess Who playing a warm-up show at a Winnipeg bar or community centre remain unconfirmed.
Sunday, April 2, 2000
'Peg rocks box office
Guess Who seats sell out in a day
By GREG Di CRESCE -- Winnipeg Sun
WINNIPEG - Mike Lebel was looking at the seats left yesterday in CanWest Global Park for a June 30 concert by The Guess Who -- and the 36-year-old Winnipegger wasn't thrilled. Lebel was at the park's ticket booth just after noon, when tickets had been on sale for just over two hours. "I guess the wives aren't coming," he laughed, ordering six tickets instead of eight in a more expensive section of the park. About two hours later, at 2 p.m., The Guess Who's Winnipeg gig -- "for all intents and purposes" -- slugged a box office grand slam and sold out.
'PRODIGAL SONS'
"We had high expectations for this market and it went just as we hoped. Winnipeg embraced its prodigal sons," said the tour's national promoter Kevin Donnelly, Western vice-president of House of Blues Concerts Canada. "It's been absolutely fantastic," band manager Lorne Saifer said from Los Angeles, where he was monitoring sales by cell phone. Saifer, a former Winnipegger, figured the show would do well in the band's home town. Donnelly said the 1,000 gold circle tickets priced at $79.50 a seat were among the first to sell. With the remaining 9,000 tickets also gobbled up by early afternoon, Donnelly decided at 5 p.m. yesterday to add 200 more seats to the show. Ticket sales in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, which started Friday, have gotten out of the blocks well, Donnelly said.
"In Toronto, we sold 4,000 tickets in the first hour the box office was open, and the response has been similar in the other cities," he said. "All of Canada has a special spot in its heart for this group," Donnelly said. Mitch Brennan, a ticket seller at the CanWest TicketMaster booth, said he can't speak for the rest of the country but Winnipeg is "wild about the Guess Who." Brennan said a lineup for tickets began Friday at 5:30 a.m. and by the time he showed up for work at 10 a.m. yesterday it was at least 200 people strong. "For our first major event other than baseball this was amazing. I even had a guy ask me if he should camp overnight to ensure he'd be at the front of the line to see his heroes rock," Brennan said. Most of those in line were between 35 to 55, Brennan added. The tour will rock 22 other cities across Canada.
-- with files from John Kendle
Wednesday, March 29, 2000
Guess Who box set in works
By PAUL CANTIN
Senior Reporter, JAM! Showbiz
To coincide with their reunion tour, The Guess Who is looking into the possibility of releasing a multi-disc retrospective of the group's career -- including never-before heard material, the group's manager told JAM. Lorne Saifer confirmed Tuesday that The Guess Who is having discussions with their record label BMG about digging into the band's archive for a new career-spanning release. Although the group has been the subject of several anthologies and collections, it would be the first time The Guess Who has received the kind of expansive treatment usually accorded groups of their stature. "I think anthologized is really not the right word. I think The Guess Who have been repackaged," Saifer said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles office. "I don't think there has been a real true anthology, and we are talking about that now. It is coming together with a four- or five-disc set that would include a lot of things the public has never heard. There is a lot of stuff they have never heard.
"We're talking to BMG about it right now. We're looking to see if we can bring it together." In addition, the entire Canadian tour will be recorded, which leaves open the possibility of a live album, and Saifer -- who has for years handled singer Burton Cummings' career, but will now assume management of the full band -- said they are also talking about filming the tour for a possible documentary. "All of these things aside, what we care about most of all is going out on this tour and having fun and playing."
After the band split in the early-'70s, bassist Jim Kale assumed rights to the group's name and continued to tour with support players as The Guess Who, but without Cummings, guitarist Randy Bachman and drummer Garry Peterson. Saifer said Kale and his version of the band will complete shows booked up until the end of April and then cease "for the next couple of years." From there, the four original members will unite for rehearsals in either Winnipeg or Toronto before kicking off the reunion tour in Newfoundland on May 31, he said. Saifer conceded that since the band's one-off performance together at last summer's Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, it has been a lot of work setting up the reunion ("I know how Henry Kissinger felt going back and forth to China," he joked), but said he felt there was no single issue that helped expedite the reunion.
"I don't think there was any one single element that came together. I just think the gods .... I mean, the Pan Am Games and playing together was important. I think there was the whole issue of ''American Woman' -- the song is in 'American Beauty,' 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.' It brought a lot of focus back to this band," he said. "I don't think there was any one particular thing, but a few things came together. Burton and I have been talking about it for awhile. It just came together because it was meant to be."
The tour itinerary has some gaps -- including a hole on Canada Day, which follows the group's performance in their hometown of Winnipeg -- and Saifer said there is a chance other dates might be added. He's also looking into opportunities outside Canada for a world tour. When asked about the possibility of Cummings and Bachman writing some new songs for the tour or for a new studio album, he said: "I think that is really a function of coming together and doing it. I don' think you can orchestrate that or legislate that. What happens is the musicians come together in a room, and all of the sudden, the sparks fly.
Tuesday, March 28, 2000
Guess Who announce Cdn. tour
Guess Who's back?
After months of speculation, concert promoters House Of Blues Canada confirmed today that the original lineup of The Guess Who -- Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson -- will reunite for a cross-Canada reunion tour, kicking off May 31 in Newfoundland and wrapping up after 22 dates July 14 in Brandon, Man. Here's the full itinerary for what has been dubbed the "Running Back Thru Canada" tour:
May 31st St. John's, NFLD Memorial Stadium
June 2nd Halifax, N.S. Metro Centre
June 3rd Saint John, N.B Harbour Station
June 7th Ottawa, ON Wordperfect Theatre
June 9th Montreal, P.Q Molson Centre Theatre
June 10th Kitchener, ON Memorial Auditorium
June 12th Peterborough, ON Memorial Centre
June 13th North Bay, ON Memorial Gardens
June 15th Toronto, ON The Molson Amphitheatre
June 17th Thunder Bay, ON Fort William Gardens
June 19th Saskatoon, SASK Saskatchewan Place
June 21st Prince George, BC Mulitplex
June 22nd Kelowna, BC Skyreach Place
June 24th Vancouver, BC GM Place
June 25th Kamloops, BC Riverside Coliseum
June 27th Calgary, AB Canadian Airlines Saddledome
June 28th Edmonton, AB Skyreach Centre
June 30th Winnipeg, MA Canwest Global Park
July 8th Grande Prairie, AB Canada Games Arena
July 9th Red Deer, AB Centrium
July 11th Lethbridge, AB Sportsplex
July 14th Brandon, MA Keystone Arena
Tickets for the Toronto date go on sale Friday, March 31 at 10 a.m. through all Ticketmaster outlets. They cost $49.50, $39.50 and $29.50. Tickets are also available by calling (416) 870-8000 or online at http://www.ticketmaster.ca.
Tuesday, March 28, 2000
Guess Who to team up at ballpark
Show June 30 at The Forks
By JOHN KENDLE -- Winnipeg Sun
WINNIPEG - It's official.
Winnipeg music's original Fab Four -- The Guess Who -- will play the inaugural concert at CanWest Global Park at The Forks June 30, concert promoter House of Blues Canada confirmed yesterday. The original quartet of singer/keyboardist Burton Cummings, guitarist Randy Bachman, bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson -- aided by post-Cummings bandmember Donnie McDougall -- will play as part of a 23-city Canadian tour which begins in late May in St. John's, Nfld., promoter Kevin Donnelly said.
"It'll be magnificent to see them in that ballpark on the Friday of the Canada Day long weekend," Donnelly said. "Just under 10,000" tickets will be sold for the concert, he said. CanWest Global's listed capacity is 6,266 for baseball. Most tickets will cost $49.50. Fewer than than 1,000 infield seats will be sold at a "gold circle" price of $79.50.
TICKETS ON SALE SATURDAY
A limited number of ducats will be made available for $32.50. Tickets go on sale Saturday and can be purchased at all TicketMaster outlets or by calling 780-3333. The band is set to play Brandon's Keystone Centre on July 14, and in Craven, Sask., on July 17.
Rumours of a May warm-up date at a Winnipeg club or community centre remain unconfirmed.
Tuesday, March 21, 2000
Guess Who going on the road
Winnipeg date planned for June 30
By JOHN KENDLE -- Winnipeg Sun
WINNIPEG - Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman have ironed out many of the details and are taking the The Guess Who on the road this summer, The Sun has learned.
The original lineup of the legendary Winnipeg rock group -- best known for such hits as These Eyes, Undun, No Time, Laughing and American Woman -- will embark on a 20-date Canadian tour in May, ending June 30 in Winnipeg.
"Yes, you will see The Guess Who on the road this summer, barring anything unforeseen" band manager Lorne Saifer said last night from Los Angeles.
HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL
"Those are the dates which have been offered to us, but not everything is completely ironed out. We are looking to play Winnipeg on June 30," he said.
The band, which reunited for a highly successful four-song set during last year's Pan Am Games closing ceremony, is expected to kick off the tour with a club date in Winnipeg in mid-May, sources told Sun Media.
The tour dates, to be sponsored by MuchMoreMusic, will be officially announced March 28, with tickets going on sale April 1. Ticket prices for the shows are expected to be less than $50 each.
Cummings, Bachman, bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson reunited last August for a 20-minute set during the closing ceremonies of the Pan Am Games. It was the first time since 1983 the original quartet had performed together. Cummings and Bachman -- the group's songwriting tandem -- have been reportedly meeting for the past several months to work out the tour's business details.
A Tour Date!
According to the Regina Leader Post (Friday, March 6) the
Guess Who will be performing at the Rock 'n' the Valley at Craven, Sask. on July 15. The 3 day classic rock festival runs July 14-16 and includes such bands as Nazareth, the Georgia Satellites, Prism, Doucette, Chilliwack, Styx, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Doug and the Slugs, Queen City Kids, Harlequin, Men Without Shame, Nick Gilder, Stampeders, and a Randy Bachman-less BTO.
Kale confirms start of tour!
Jim Kale made an appearance on a Winnipeg talk show this morning (Friday)
with his latest project, a three man band called 'Dink Boy.' Here's what
he said about the Guess Who reunion.
Charles Adler (show host): Talk to me about the reunion of The Guess Who,
because people want to know.
Jim Kale: Yeah, it's going on and, yes, I'm in it. There's chatter about
the baseball park in early summer.
CA: Reunion at Canwest Global?
JK: That's one, there will be a national tour.
CA: What about a world tour?
JK: One thing at a time
.And that's all that was said.
The Reunion is unofficially Official!
The latest news from both camps converges -
An actual quote from Burton about the reunion from Thursday's Clubhouse:
Gary MacLean:"Do you have any type of announcement to make yet?"
Burton:"Well, it looks pretty good. It's pretty well official that The Guess Who are going to reunite and do a pretty lengthy tour. The very last details are being ironed out right now. Everybody has spoken to each other. I've spoken to Jim Kale personally in the last few days. Bachman, Peterson, McDougall, Marty Kramer who handles the other guys, Lorne Saifer who handles my affairs. Everyone's talking and it looks great. It looks like we're going to start rehearsing in Winnipeg around the first week of April."
And news from Nancy Steisslinger, who runs the web page for the currently touring Guess Who: "It has not been finally decided yet, but it looks like our Guess Who may be dissolved as of the end of April. The deal for a Bachman/Cummings/Kale/Peterson reunion tour is close to being concluded, and that will apparently mean the end of Dixon/Peterson/Shaw/Russell/Sinnaeve. I didn't want to send this notice out prematurely because anything could still happen, but I want to give you all time to plan trips to see TGW again, if you can."
Kale's Guess Who's current itinerary:
March 10 Grand Casino Avoyelles Marksville LA.
March 18 Vetrock/Coachman's Park Clearwater FL.
March 24 & 25 Harrah's Ak-Chin Casino Maricopa AZ.
March 31 Grand Casino Gulfport MS.
April 1 Grand Casino Robinsonville MS.
April 8 Three Rivers Music Festival Columbia SC.
April 15 Casablanca Resort Casino & Spa Mesquite NV.
April 18 - 23 Cactus Pete's Casino Jackpot NV.
April 29 Featherfest Springdale AR.
May 13 Army Base Willow Grove PA.
No dates yet for the Cummings/Bachman/Kale/Peterson/McDougal grouping.
.gif){kind=small}