Burton Cummings at the CNE, Friday August 18, 2017


2017.8.18
Burton Cummings live at the CNE Grandstand, Friday August 18, 2017

      The best thing about the CNE for music fans must be the Bandshell Concert series. This year’s opening night at The Ex featured Burton Cummings for a retro price of ten bucks. Burton has played with his current touring band for longer than he was with the Guess Who (at least the first time around, and the Y2K era reunion tours).
      As a lifelong Guess Who fan, I knew what I was getting into with a Burton solo show- “Stand Tall”, the mid-seventies schmaltz hits, but I love the Guess Who enough I’ll sit through solo Burton hits; at least for this modest cover charge!
      Speaking of covers, there were a couple tonight. No Doors covers, although Burton often riffs on “Roadhouse Blues” before “American Woman”. Wearing a Jim Morrison t-shirt, and announcing his band liked playing covers, I briefly imagine Burton leading them on entirely decent renditions of any number of Doors songs. Instead, we were treated to “Baby Come Back” by The Equals and, for some odd reason, “Louie Louie”, which no rock band should really touch after hearing Metallic K.O. – many have tried - but that’s another topic.
      I got to the venue a little late and heard “New Mother Nature” as I closed in on the stage. Cummings introduced “These Eyes” as the song that changed his life, which is true, but leaves out the long string of classic rock hits The Guess Who managed to pump out in such a short period. A bunch of them were played tonight, mixed with several solo hits. Burton was clearly in his element tonight, spotting people in the audience and telling the audience he’s played more shows at the CNE Grandstand than anyone else. “Saskatchewan” was preceded by Burton recalling a review describing it as “the first truly Canadian rock n roll song.”
      “American Woman” was the predictable finale, this time beginning with Cummings vamping on his keyboard, playing various classical music riffs before shifting to the bluesy dirge that segues into the Guess Who’s other Huge Hit. There was a snappy encore by way of “Share The Land” which wrapped up the evening inside the Grandstand, which seems to have an earlier noise curfew than the longstanding 11 p.m. cut-off.


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