Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings will share the land, or at least the stage again, this summer as the Guess Who duo hits the road for two dozen dates, mostly in their native Canada.
The trek, billed as Bachman-Cummings: Together Again Live in Concert, is their first in a decade as a duo (accompanied by five additional players). It will feature not only the Guess Who hits but also favorites from Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Cummings’ solo career. “It’s gonna be 35, 40 hit songs that are going to sound really like the record,” Bachman tells Billboard. “No Las Vegas, Bill Murray on Saturday Night Live parodies of our own songs; This is gonna be exactly like the record, exactly like what’s in people’s memories.”
The tour kicks off June 13 in Hubert Heights, Ohio, and plays six Midwest U.S. dates before heading north of the border for the rest of the tour, finishing Aug. 8 in Grand Forks, B.C. The June 27 show in the Guess Who’s hometown of Winnipeg will be part of historical celebrations for both the city and the province of Manitoba. Tickets for the trek go on sale March 13, with more information here.
The duo will also be releasing The Bachman Cummings Collection in June Sony Music Entertainment, a seven-disc box set that features the Guess Who albums Bachman played on as well as subsequent material by Bachman and Cummings. The tour comes alongside the 55th anniversary of the Guess Who’s first hit single, a cover of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ “Shakin’ All Over,” and the 50th anniversary of the iconic “American Woman.”
“The timing for this seems right for both of us,” Bachman says. “And as time goes by, I find that to me and Burton and all the fans, the songs mean more and more and more. The songs seem more relevant to about four or five decades of fans, from teenage kids to people in their seventies and eighties. That’s an amazing thing.” The fact that it’s Bachman and Cummings singing them makes a difference as well, the duo contends.
“There are one or two fake Guess Who bands out there,” Cummings notes. “There have been a couple of different aggregations of BTO without Randy. I think it’s nice the real guys are going out now. Randy and I are the guys who wrote and sang the famous songs. People know the difference. They go see the fake Guess Who and they’re very disappointed that there’s not one guy who played on the records. There’s something to be said for the real guys going out. It’s more valuable every year that Randy and I can go out and do these songs together. People are very excited about this, and it makes Randy and me excited.”
The seeds for this reunion were planted last June, when Bachman and Cummings played as a duo at Casa Loma in Toronto to benefit the Canadian Walk of Fame. At the end of August, meanwhile, Bachman made a surprise guest appearance during Cummings’ headlining set at the Canadian National Exhibition, also in Toronto. “That just started the phone ringing and the lines burning up, and we decided to keep the ball rolling from there,” Bachman recalls.
The duo has no plans to write or record any new music — “There’s no record industry or radio anymore,” Bachman notes — and Cummings doesn’t view that as a negative in any way.
“I’m very content to sing the famous songs for the rest of my career,” he says. “Do you know how hard it was to get those hit records? What’s wrong with singing them for the rest of your life? There’s nothing wrong with that.”
The full Bachman-Cummings: Together Again Live in Concert itinerary includes:
USA
June 13 Huber Heights, OH Rose Music Center at The Heights
June 14 Northfield, OH MGM Northfield Park
June 17 Tama, IA Meskwaki Bingo Casino Hotel
June 18 St. Charles, MO The Family Arena
June 20 Rosemont, IL Rosemont Theater
June 21 Prior Lake, MN Mystic Lake Casino Hotel
CANADA
June 11 Windsor, ON The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor
June 27 Winnipeg, MB UNITE 150 Concert
June 28 Regina, SK Brandt Centre
June 30 Saskatoon, SK SaskTel Centre
July 3 Medicine Hat, AB Canalta Centre
July 6 Victoria, BC Save On Foods Memorial Centre
July 7 Vancouver, BC Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena
July 9 Edmonton, AB Rogers Place
July 14 Moncton, NB Avenir Centre
July 15 Halifax, NS Scotiabank Centre
July 17 St. John’s, NFLD Mile One Centre
July 19 Summerside, PEI Credit Union Place
July 21 St. Catharines, ON Meridian Centre
July 22 London, ON Budweiser Gardens
July 24 Kemptville, ON Kemptville Live Music Festival
July 27 Toronto, ON Budweiser Stage
July 29 Montreal, PQ Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier
August 8 Grand Forks, BC Canada Rock Fest
