Burton Cummings at the Coach House, January 2025 (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
Burton Cummings’ nearly two-hour concert at the venerable Coach House Concert Hall in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., on January 12, 2025, was a joyous time-travel back to the heyday of the Guess Who, the Canadian hit machine of the late 1960s and early ’70s responsible for such hits as “These Eyes,” “Laughing,” “No Time,” “Undun” and, of course, “American Woman.”
Cummings must have some dark secrets, because like Dorian Gray he looks, acts and sings like a man half his age (77, as of Dec. 31). The man who many consider one of the rock era’s finest singers was in exceptionally fine spirits and even better voice, telling the audience from the start that even though he’s got a new album out, “I love doing the songs that you heard on the radio,” a caveat that was met with thunderous applause.
He overdelivered on that promise, with 12 of the 18 songs from the Guess Who’s impressive canon of radio favorites and just one, “Blackjack Fever,” off his excellent new LP, A Few Good Moments, which was released last November.
Burton Cummings and band at the Coach House Concert Hall in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., January 2025 (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
Cummings and his superb five-member backup band, most of whom have toured with him for nearly a quarter-century, began with an energetic version of “Bus Rider,” a classic rock staple that was the opening track to the Guess Who’s seventh album, 1970’s Share the Land, their first without lead guitarist and chief songwriter Randy Bachman.
Cummings, who has slimmed down significantly since his last U.S. tour ended in 2020 less than a month before the pandemic, sat behind his trusty keyboard, center stage, playing with the zest and frivolity of a juke joint pianist and singing his heart out.
Throughout the evening, he took several jabs at what he calls “the fake Guess Who”—an outfit led by the band’s original drummer, Garry Peterson, and bassist Jim Kale—which he and Bachman claimed in a lawsuit was deceiving the public “by playing the songs we wrote and I sang.” Litigation ended last September in a settlement under which Cummings and Bachman acquired the trademark for the band’s name, which Kale had secretly registered in 1986.
Burton Cummings at the Coach House Concert Hall in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., January 2025 (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
Cummings then ran through four of the Guess Who’s biggest hits, beginning with the novelty tune “Clap for the Wolfman,” from another post-Bachman LP, 1974’s Road Food. The song peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the Guess Who’s 11th and next-to-last U.S. Top 40 hit.
Next came “Hand Me Down World,” a #17 Hot 100 hit off Share the Land, which was followed by a one-two punch of two of the Guess Who’s best-loved, and most popular songs, both from 1969’s Canned Wheat LP: “Laughing” (#10) and “Undun” (#22). The latter featured a stunning flute solo by Cummings, who prefaced his performance by telling the crowd, “I don’t play the flute much anymore, and I never have been Ian Anderson.”
Watch a portion of “Undun” from an earlier show
He took a moment to offer his “prayers and vibes” to the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires that decimated the communities of Pacific Palisades and Altadena the preceding week, and then expressed his thanks to the audience for coming out to see him.
“It’s nice to be playing in the United States again,” he said.
Cummings and his band then launched into a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” followed by another Guess Who rocker, “Star Baby,” a #39 near-hit Cummings laughingly said “was on the charts for six months—it wasn’t on the top, but it was there.” Then came a J.J. Cale song, “Trouble in the City,” followed by the classic lineup Guess Who’s first hit, “These Eyes.”
Watch Cummings perform “These Eyes” during the 2025 American tour
Cummings and Bachman wrote the song together in 1968 when he was still living at home with his mother and grandmother in the north end of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. “Randy had some pieces and I had some pieces and we put them all together, Randy on his guitar and me on my piano,” Cummings told the Coach House crowd. “My mom and grandmother were in the kitchen and living room, listening to us put this thing together, and it changed our lives forever. I got a beautiful gold record for it—Oh, I love those gold records—and it’s been played on the radio now more than five million times. I bet at least some of you have heard this once.” Then, turning to the band: “Let’s see if they remember it, boys.”
Burton Cummings reprises the flute solo from “Undun” at a 2025 California show (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
Of course, everyone did, and Cummings seemed to drift back in time as he sang the song’s memorable chorus and verse. And while his voice strained to hit some of the high notes, which he attributed to the dry Santa Ana winds (“I live in Saskatchewan, where everything’s dead frozen right now”), no one seemed to mind.
After that came the upbeat and defiant “My Own Way to Rock,” the title track off Cummings’ second solo LP; the Guess Who’s “Albert Flasher,” a B-side featured in the movie Almost Famous; “Blackjack Fever”; “Stand Tall,” his first solo hit (peaking at #10 in 1976); and “Guns, Guns, Guns,” a moderate hit off the 1972 Guess Who LP Rockin’ that Cummings said he wrote after a flight in Canada where a group of hunters leaned their rifles up against the cockpit door.
The concert then reached its crescendo with an extended version of “American Woman,” the band’s signature song, followed by what Cummings referred to as “two songs in one,” “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature,” both off the 1970 American Woman album.
Related: Our 2024 interview with Cummings
Enough good things cannot be said about his band: drummer John Fitzsimons, bassist Jeff Jones and percussionist Nick Sinopoli (all of whom have been with the band for 24 years), along with guitarists Tim Bovaconti, a 17-year veteran, and newcomer Joe Augello.
The rhythm section was as solid as can be, while the twin guitarists, aside from delivering a handful of blazing solos, perfectly replicated the Guess Who’s famous fuzztones on “American Woman” and “No Time” and the piercing bridges in “Share the Land,” the second and final encore—and a song Cummings laughingly noted he wrote “back in the hippie days.” (The first encore performance was a cover of the garage-rock classic “Louie, Louie,” which Cummings said the band was doing “just for fun.”)
Two nights later, Cummings and crew played essentially the same set—sans “Knockin’” and “Louie, Louie”—at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. Once again, it wasn’t clear who was having more fun, Cummings or the sold-out crowd. As he noted on both nights, “I just turned 77—double 7s—that’s my lucky number.” At both the Coach House and the Belly Up Tavern, Cummings had a winning hand. Tickets for the 2025 tour are available here.
Cummings’ recent album, A Few Good Moments, is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. An extensive Bachman Cummings collection is available here.
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