bachman cummings retirement drive

i have to learn to get better at writing sooner after things have happened... it's already been a week, but last-last saturday, june 24th, i, along with about 8 or so of my fellow henrys colleagues, got kicked down some bachman/cummings tickets for their show at the JLC... great seats, too.. and my pair included a meet'n'greet - gotta love the management perk! thanks Vivi!!

shelly took my extra and probably had more fun than anyone in that arena - i shouldnt have been so blown away that she knew the words to pretty much every song, save 1 or 2... a champ, for sure. i know my guess who fairly well, but the solo stuff gets a little messy for me...

anyways, they dubbed it "a celebration of the songs they had written together" - fair enough. at least i was warned. what followed was truly a lesson in self indulgent rock'n'roll cheesery, a hit parade drenched by swirling tungsten bulbs and propped up by the 4 guys hiding in the misses. no need giving a setlist, you know the songs. grab greatest hits vol. 1 and 2, add a couple BTO classics, and you got the idea. london ontario decided "takin' care of business" would be the highlight of the night. sorry, burton.

of course i knew this going in.

but you cant help but hope for these guys to celebrate each other in self indulgent rock'n'roll wizardry, like they were once capable of. they had some balls back in the day, it's too bad they hung 'em up somewhere along the way. but i guess everyone's gotta get back the money they pissed and snorted away, eh?

of course the playing was well executed, obviously well rehearsed, and bang on. but neither did anything out of the ordinary, except for when burton was off stage and randy got to talkin' about lenny breau and played some pretty cool jazz licks - it woulda been nice to hear randy do some new shit that he's into and let him go off, i bet he's a more interesting and diverse guitar player than he lets on.

i cant say it was a bad show, it was certainly entertaining, and i actually had a lot of fun, but... you know.. it's old hat.. done... over.. it's the retirement drive.. the self indulgence got old fast, the classing themselves with the dylan's of the world, calling themselves geniuses, i mean, who does this? the celebration just seemed silly.

the meet and greet was hooked up by panasonic canada, i believe they were the tour sponsor. that was certainly interesting. bachman was first out and he was real interested in talking about the air conditioning and the temperature of the place - fair enough, you meet a lot of people, what're ya gonna say? he seemed cool enough. they had to call burton out for the photo op, and when he came out to shake hands he didnt want any names because "he wasnt gonna know them anyways", after he went down the line i commented on the sweet patches on his jacket and he spun around, pointed to one on his lower left stomach side and said "do you know what this one is?" - it was a Dead patch, but i didnt know the album.. didnt matter, before i could finish my sentence he cut me off and in a most pretentious voice said "oh, you young kids these days.. this is the grateful dead and an album called terrapin station, and on that album is a song called estimated prophet which was written in 7/4 time." - then he turned around, we took a picture, and he was on his way out. what the hell do ya say to that? i mean, there are lots of songs written in 7/4 time. that doesnt make bobby a genius. besides, the best thing about any estimated is the eyes that usually comes before or after. my head could have very easily exploded.

anyways, he kinda redeemed himself when the tour manager held him back to meet some more people that were waiting and one dude had brought a couple 7 inch singles from germany, one for randy, one for burton, and neither of them had any idea that they had released either of those 2 songs as singles at any point in their careers. they seemed genuinely blown away and sincerely thankful to the guy, which was cool... i mean, he seemed like a real music fan, right, not just someone who was part of a sponsored meet and greet. fair enough.