Normally, I'm not a fan for albums by musical acts long past their glory years. But this is an exception. One key reason is that the two main creative forces in the original band, lead singer Burton Cummings and lead guitarist Randy Bachman, didn't actually stay together that long. Bachman left the band in 1970. Then he went on to big success with his band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, even having a Number One single in the U.S. in 1974 with "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet." Their reunion in the early 20002s featured Cummings and Bachman together for the first time since 1970 (outside a couple of early reunion shows), which meant Bachman got to play lead guitar on all the Guess Who songs he missed after 1970, and some Bachman-Turner Overdrive hits got incorporated into the set list.
Furthermore, while Cummings and Bachman may not have looked as fit as they were back in the 1970s, their singing and playing was top notch. Furthermore, the rest of the band consisted of members from the 1970s. The one major holdout was Jim Kale, who was the bassist from the band's origin until 1972. In the 1980s, he noticed that the name "The Guess Who" had never been trademarked in the U.S., and he scooped that up for himself without consulting other band members. Then he created a touring group using that name. Not surprisingly, this pissed off Cummings, Bachman, and others. So while Kale didn't take part in the reunion tours, he got a percentage of their profits by allowing them to use the Guess Who name. (In 2024, after many years of legal battles, Cummings and Bachman finally reclaimed the band name.)
This soundboard bootleg sounds great, as good as an official live album. However, note that there is a similar official live album called "Running Back Thru Canada." It was recorded a year earlier at a concert in Winnipeg, Canada. But while the set list is pretty similar, there are unique songs on both. I'm a big enough Guess Who fan to have both that and this.
This album is an hour and 30 minutes long.
01 talk (Guess Who)
02 Shakin' All Over (Guess Who)
03 Guns, Guns, Guns (Guess Who)
04 Hand Me Down World (Guess Who)
05 talk (Guess Who)
06 These Eyes (Guess Who)
07 talk (Guess Who)
08 You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (Guess Who)
09 Clap for the Wolfman (Guess Who)
10 Glamour Boy (Guess Who)
11 Lookin' Out for Number One (Guess Who)
12 No Sugar Tonight - New Mother Nature (Guess Who)
13 Let It Ride (Guess Who)
14 talk (Guess Who)
15 Undone (Guess Who)
16 talk (Guess Who)
17 American Woman (Guess Who)
18 Laughing (Guess Who)
19 Bus Rider (Guess Who)
20 No Time (Guess Who)
21 talk (Guess Who)
22 Share the Land (Guess Who)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/19RFfoiF
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/Yyv1Ft0MFSDdSFD/file
The cover photo shows Randy Bachman (left) and Burton Cummings (right) at the Radio and Records Convention in Beverly Hills, California, in 2001. They were further apart, but I moved them closer together in Photoshop.
Bachman and Cummings actually did a tour in the 80s as well, although it wasn't billed as the Guess Who.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I just saw BTO last year, here in Las Vegas. It was only Randy Bachman left from the original band, but the new band included his son Tal Bachman, who played his one hit from the 90s. They also played a bunch of Guess Who, so it was a great show. I did record all of the audio with my Tascam DR-05; I think it came out well. I'll have to master it and see if it's at all interesting to you.
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