THUNDER BAY -- Burton Cummings really had nothing to worry about.
The legendary former front-man of The Guess Who on Sunday closed out Day 3 of the Thunder Bay Blues Festival and showed even at 68 with a slew of gold records and at one time being able to boast his band had sold more records than all other Canadian acts combined, he’s not above an insecure moment or two.
Cummings, dressed in a black Beatles T-shirt that screamed roadie rather than rock star, told the Marina Park crowd he was worried being last on the lineup might mean the less hardy Blues Fest souls might have made their way home after a weekend that just didn’t want to quit.
“When we were told we were the last act, we weren’t sure people were going to stick around,” he said.
The man blessed with Canada’s most famous moustache this side of Lanny McDonald had nothing to worry about.
If anything, the waterfront got even more packed as his slightly-delayed, much anticipated set neared, the patron count in the 7,500 range for a third straight night, camping chairs filling almost every available space.
Not that the chairs were needed by that point – a marked improvement over the crowd’s stubborn sit-in-their-seat mentality for most of the day.
Cummings and his mostly-Canadian band tore through a generation of hits, the Winnipeg-born musician stopping several times to tell a tale, his appreciation for record-buying, radio-listening public coming through time and time again.
The love affair was mutual.
“This certainly won’t be our last visit to Thunder Bay,” he said late in the show.
At one point early in the nearly two-hour set, Cummings recalled his early days in the music business, when Thunder Bay was a favourite stopping point.
“One of the guys who used to come see us before we got famous was Mr. Paul Shaffer. We used to play here every Dec. 23 back in the sixties so we could then pack up and drive home to Winnipeg all night so we could spend Christmas Eve with our folks. That was a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday,” he said, using it as a launching point into Laughing, the Guess Who smash that climbed to No. 1 in Canada in 1969.
Immediately afterward he slowed things down with These Eyes, also from 47 years ago.
“I know it’s a slow song, and I know it’s an outdoor show, but I’ve got to do it because this is a memory for me for which I will remain grateful for the rest of my time on Earth,” he said, the song’s familiar piano notes ratcheting the crowd’s fervor a notch higher.
Cummings, who was introduced by NHL hall-of-famer Grant Fuhr, left nothing back stage, the audience eating up timeless versions of his career-defining tunes, a set list that also included beloved songs like No Time, No Sugar Tonight/New Mother, Clap for the Wolfman, Glamour Boy, American Woman, Break it to them Gently and his closer, Share the Land.
Along the way he quoted the poetry of the late Jim Morrison and showed that even nearing 70, he’s still one of the most energetic entertainers this country has to offer.
It was a fitting end to an outstanding all-Canadian Thunder Bay Blues Festival.
