Burton Cummings; Keswick Theater Glenside, PA 1/18/12

[jimmy19029]

Alright! Burton's finally back in town! It's been over a decade since I've seen him in this area. Back then he was part of a reunion of The Guess Who. Now he's back to touring on his own......with a fantastic five piece backing band, all of whom are capable of handling backup and harmony vocals. I was especially impressed with many of Michael Zweig's scorching leads. And bassist Jeff Jones is a veteran of many classic bands, including Red Rider, Ocean (and I believe he was also the bass player in Rush, just before Geddy Lee joined). Jones' father, Burton reminded us, also played piano for the Mary Wells Motown hit My Guy.

And The Guess Who is also back out there touring without him or guitarist Randy Bachman, a fact that Burton kept reminding us of all night as he took frequent pot shots, imploring us not to go see that "touring bad karaoke joke" and stay home instead. When introducing a Guess Who song, he would remind us that it was a song done by the REAL Guess Who.

Opening tonight was a duo with acoustic guitars. I believe Steve Mann was the name of one of the guys. They played classic rock cover tunes, like Tin Man, Melissa and Hotel California. Both were competent players, but one of the guys sounded like he had a cold, causing his harmonies to waiver off key. Not pretty!

Burton was on at 8:50 for a 105 minute show that included just about every hit he'd ever been a part of. Many of the audience members were amazed at the number of hit songs he's had.

"Ahh, love these old theaters", sighed Burton. "All the show business ghosts that are in the air. We have a similar theater up in Winnipeg that was refurbished and named after me", he exclaimed proudly. Before performing his 1974 hit Clap for the Wolfman, he talked about getting to know Wolfman Jack pretty well during the times The Guess Who co-hosted The Midnight Special with him back in the mid-70s. "Wolf is up in Rock & Roll Heaven now partying with Jim Morrison and Kurt Winter and I'm sure it's a helluva party"! He mentioned the late Guess Who guitarist Kurt Winter frequently and fondly all during the evening and said, "When you tour all over the world with a guy at age 21, it creates quite an unbreakable bond."

Now in his middle sixties (he reminded us he just turned 64 on New Year's Eve), he doesn't possess quite the range he had back when and many of the songs are pitched down a half step or two in key. But there's still enough of "The Voice" there to dazzle us and we loved hearing his story set ups for each song. Guns Guns Guns, he recalled writing back in the early 70s when he and the other band members would see groups of American hunters getting on their plane in Minneapolis to hunt up in Canada. "They would all get on board carrying their rifles and shot guns and lean them against the cockpit door! I SWEAR I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP"! He laughed. "You wouldn't see that anywhere today...except on a Saturday Night Live skit..." He recalled writing These Eyes in half an hour with Randy Bachman when he still lived at home sitting in his grandmother's living room. "We didn't think much of it at the time", said Burton. "But RCA loved it and I hear it just passed FIVE MILLION PLAYS on the radio. It's up there with stuff like Lady Madonna and Bridge Over Troubled Water. We never imagined anything like that then." And Undun, as he picked up his flute, he introduced as Randy's finest song that he was just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to sing.

And there were some nice surprises in the set as well. Stand Tall, his biggest solo hit in the US, he said he had not been playing in shows in over 15 years but had recently added back into his setlists. We also got We Came From the U.S.A., a track from his most recent album, Above the Ground, and I'm Scared, from his first solo album. He talked of recently going back to the Cathedral of St. Thomas in New York to show on his website the location of the inspiration to the song.

Songs like Hand Me Down World and Share the Land ring truer today than they did back then, Burton exclaimed. And as he returned to the stage for his encore, he announced he was going to have some fun and play something he didn't play every night. "Back in the early 60s, me and many others sat down with this song and bit by bit tried to figure out the lyrics. Many people STILL don't know the words"! He and the band then burst into Louie Louie.

Just before leaving the stage, Burton reminded us not to forget how lucky we are to be living in a country like the US. And that all one has to do to be reminded of this fact is to turn on CNN any damn time of the night or day.


No Sugar Tonight/
New Mother Nature
Albert Flasher
Clap for the Wolfman
Laughing
Guns, Guns, Guns
Stand Tall
Hand Me Down World
Undun
We Came From The U.S.A
These Eyes
Bus Rider
I'm Scared
American Woman
Star Baby
No Time

Louie Louie
Share the Land

Band:

Burton Cummings - lead vocals, keyboards, guitars, flute
Nick Sinopoli - percussion, backing vocals
David Love - guitar, backing vocals
Jeff Jones - bass, backing vocals
Michael Zweig - guitar, backing vocals
Sean Fitzsimons - drums, backing vocals