"And would you cry if I told you that I lied..."
Actually, this will be a truthful post. Promise.
About a week ago my brother texted me to remind me that Randy Bachman and Fred Turner's current project, Bachman &Turner (as opposed to Bachman-Turner Overdrive, an earlier sorta-incarnation and still one of my favourite band names ever) were playing at the Metro Centre. I went online and bought us tickets, which seemed a little on the expensive side for a bunch of old dudes whose heyday was when I was in elementary school.
However, they were freaking awesome at the Grey Cup last fall (truly, Grey Cuppiest halftime I have ever seen!) and you figure you ought to see these iconic acts at least once. So we sucked it up and off we went. To be honest, by the end of the day yesterday I was really not in the mood to rush right back downtown, but I made myself.
And spent the entire show with an idiotically gleeful grin all over my face, staring at Randy Bachman's hands. The old man can play some guitar. And the band didn't have that embalmed quality that hits some old timers (*cough*RollingStones*cough*) and makes the show feel like it's happening in a diorama.
No, these were old dudes in the Neil Young mode of putting their gray heads down and going for it. They obviously played all the classic-rock-radio hits like "Let It Ride" and "Taking Care of Business" and "Hey You" and "Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" ("recently declared the greatest stuttering song ever by the American Stuttering Association!" Randy announced, and I have not checked his source yet because I'd rather believe it) and they seemed to enjoy doing so.
Also, Randy played the whole show on the same Les Paul, which you rarely see anymore. (He used to be a Gretsch guy, incidentally.) During one song I noticed him--okay, if you look at this Les Paul, you can see a toggle switch on the upper right section of the body. That switches the signal between the two pickups (the electronic receptor-thingies beneath the strings) and changes the quality of the sound.
I rarely really noticed players switching from one pickup to the other during a song, but Bachman did it a lot, including a few times when he went back and forth in rapid succession to create an effect much like you'd get from a distortion pedal.
It was cool, and I gotta practice more.
And though it was a seated show, the band invited everyone to come to the front and dance during the last song of the encore ("Taking Care of Business," of course) and waved cheerfully and went off into the night.
Yeah. Fun. And definitely live.
About a week ago my brother texted me to remind me that Randy Bachman and Fred Turner's current project, Bachman &Turner (as opposed to Bachman-Turner Overdrive, an earlier sorta-incarnation and still one of my favourite band names ever) were playing at the Metro Centre. I went online and bought us tickets, which seemed a little on the expensive side for a bunch of old dudes whose heyday was when I was in elementary school.
However, they were freaking awesome at the Grey Cup last fall (truly, Grey Cuppiest halftime I have ever seen!) and you figure you ought to see these iconic acts at least once. So we sucked it up and off we went. To be honest, by the end of the day yesterday I was really not in the mood to rush right back downtown, but I made myself.
And spent the entire show with an idiotically gleeful grin all over my face, staring at Randy Bachman's hands. The old man can play some guitar. And the band didn't have that embalmed quality that hits some old timers (*cough*RollingStones*cough*) and makes the show feel like it's happening in a diorama.
No, these were old dudes in the Neil Young mode of putting their gray heads down and going for it. They obviously played all the classic-rock-radio hits like "Let It Ride" and "Taking Care of Business" and "Hey You" and "Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" ("recently declared the greatest stuttering song ever by the American Stuttering Association!" Randy announced, and I have not checked his source yet because I'd rather believe it) and they seemed to enjoy doing so.
Also, Randy played the whole show on the same Les Paul, which you rarely see anymore. (He used to be a Gretsch guy, incidentally.) During one song I noticed him--okay, if you look at this Les Paul, you can see a toggle switch on the upper right section of the body. That switches the signal between the two pickups (the electronic receptor-thingies beneath the strings) and changes the quality of the sound.
I rarely really noticed players switching from one pickup to the other during a song, but Bachman did it a lot, including a few times when he went back and forth in rapid succession to create an effect much like you'd get from a distortion pedal.
It was cool, and I gotta practice more.
And though it was a seated show, the band invited everyone to come to the front and dance during the last song of the encore ("Taking Care of Business," of course) and waved cheerfully and went off into the night.
Yeah. Fun. And definitely live.