Bachman Cummings

Sunday: Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings

The third concert of the weekend was probably my favourite overall, maybe because it was such a great surprise. Cheryl and I scored some floor seats which got us fairly close to the stage and luckily the audience was generally of an age that they may stand up to applaud a song, but they are very quick to sit back down, either out of respect for people behind them or because their hips are about to give out (I am not sure which it was). This was the first concert that I attended where I saw two different men in the audience wearing suspenders -- in a non-ironic way. Cheryl and I also enjoyed seeing the stage lights shining through one lady's blue-rinsed hair in front of us. We felt like youngsters in this crowd!

I was blown away by Burton Cummings's vocal ability, even after his 40 years in the biz; I don't think they keyed down any songs (which is typical for older singers to be able to sing the songs) and he was able to sustain high notes for a long time. Burton's piano playing was extraordinary and I appreciated his showmanship and the gratitude that he and Randy expressed numerous times during the performance. Randy did not disappoint with his performance either, playing his guitar flawlessly and enjoying the songs that he sang, both with The Guess Who and with BTO. The whole band seemed to really enjoy themselves and so did the entire audience. The opening act was a female solo singer/guitar player who had quite the impressive voice. As with the Joel Plaskett concert, we were late getting to the show and only heard the opening act's final song, but it was quite good.

Randy and Burton talked quite a bit in between songs, about their careers together and as independent acts, their relationship was music partners that had its ups and downs, and the stories behind the songs, which was neat for the fans to hear. For the finale, everyone was on their feet for the whole song and there was a definite feeling of love and admiration going both ways to and from the stage. Good times.

Dave and Jenn's Wedding

Cheryl and I went to the reception for Dave and Jenn Finlayson's wedding on Saturday, July 21. It was held at Pier 21 on the Halifax waterfront. I have been to a few functions there and it is a good space to hold large events.

It was great to see Dave and Jenn so happy and it was also fun to see so many Sigs, especially some whom I haven't seen for year. As I mentioned at the time, this was the most successful Ball that Dave has ever organized! There were probably about 30 Sigma Chi's in attendance out of a few hundred people, so when we gathered together to toast the bride, the other guests must have been surprised.

Big Fish were not as spectacular as I remember them, maybe because they changed their male lead singer since I last saw them in concert. As with most bands, changing the singer (surprisingly even for a cover band like Big Fish) substantially alters the sound of the music, so that was disappointing.

Since the reception, Dave and Jenn have bought a house in Bedford (a few doors away from Tony and Liz), so they are well on their way to building their life together. Cheers, you two!

Update on the concerts

It's funny how fast time goes by when you are busy with life. I have a lot to catch up on, so I will post a few items to get my thoughts and recollections on the record.

Friday: Joel Plaskett concert

Philson and I took our time getting to the show because we weren't too excited to see Jenn Grant, the opening act, plus it had rained heavily all day and we weren't sure watching the show would be all that fun, standing in pouring rain. As it turned out, it stopped raining so we headed down to the Dartmouth Landing.

Unfortunately, we missed almost the entire set of Peter Elkas and his band. We only caught the last song for that set (which was really good) and then waited for over half an hour for Joel Plaskett to come on. The two opening acts must have only been on for less than 30 minutes each, because we weren't that late. Joel and his band put on a great show, with Peter Elkas helping out on the keyboard and guitar for some songs and Gordie Johnson (the producer of Joel's latest album), looking cool in black and a cowboy hat, added to the show by playing rhythm guitar.

The Emergency played almost all of the songs from the new album Ashtray Rock, which is good because it is full of good songs and it is a concept album, so to fully present the concept you kind of need to play at least most of the songs. They also played Bo Diddley's song near the end of the show (as they did last summer at the show for the Lunenburg Exhibition that Cheryl and I attended); I think Joel was really moved by his meeting Bo Diddley a while back. They slowly turned the Bo Diddley song into a tribute to the deceased Bob Switzer who owned Taz Records in Halifax. "Hey Bob Switzer" fits in nicely instead of "Hey Bo Diddley". They also played a Big Sugar tune, which was cool since that was Gordie Johnson's band, and finished the night with "Come On Teacher" and "True Patriot Love", two earlier hits for The Emergency. Overall, great show on an open-air stage and the weather held off just for the show, which was lucky for us.

I will post my thoughts on the other concerts in their own messages.