By Steve Newton
Yesterday the Pacific National Exhibition announced the lineup for its Summer Night Concerts series at the Pacific Coliseum, and when I saw that Bachman-Turner Overdrive was booked to play on August 20, I had an old-school PNE flashback.
Way back in the summer of 1975 a teenaged me had driven in from Chilliwack to attend the fair, where I bought one of those fake, two-page novelty newspapers that you create your own front-page headline for.
A year earlier BTO had released its incredible Not Fragile album–which I bought three new copies of at the local Kelly’s Stereo Mart because they were priced at an unbelievable $2.99 each–and for months afterward there’d been some serious air-guitar action whenever Track 3, “Roll on Down the Highway”, rolled around.
So when it came time to compose my headline for “the only newspaper at the PNE”, The Gazette, it’s no wonder that my wannabe-rocker persona asserted itself with: “STEVE NEWTON JAMS WITH B.T.O. AT PNE STAR SPECTACULAR”.
Looking back, I probly shoulda added an exclamation mark.
Anyway, as I’m wont to do, I hung on to that yellowing souvenir. I just found it, after some searching, in my collectables cabinet, located under the deflated football–autographed by the 1967 B.C. Lions–that I won in the Lions-sponsored Little Leo Punt Pass & Kick Contest when I was 10. (It’s been all downhill from there.)
Ironically, that 1975 issue of The Gazette features a photo of the Pointer Sisters, who are also performing at the PNE this year, on a double-bill with the Commodores on August 27. It’s not the exact same Pointer Sisters from the ’70s, though.
The current BTO lineup isn’t packed with original members either, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be rockin’ the Coliseum. Bassist-vocalist Fred Turner retired from touring in 2018, and now guitarist-vocalist Randy Bachman (the Guess Who guy) is joined by bassist-vocalist Mick Dalla-Vee, drummer-vocalist Marc LaFrance, guitarist-vocalist Brent Howard Knudsen, and Randy’s son Tal Bachman on vocals, guitar, and piano.
If my math is correct, that adds up to three six-string slingers, so, like I said, the joint should be rockin’. And while Turner’s big, manly vocals will be missed–he’s the guy who sang “Let It Ride” and “Roll On Down the Highway”–you could argue that Bachman wrote and sang BTO’s best-known tunes, “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”.
Not to mention what I reckon is its best one ever, “Second Hand“.
Tickets for all the PNE Summer Nights Concerts go on sale Friday (April 12) at 10 a.m. and you can find them here.
To hear the full audio of my 2001 interview with Randy Bachman, while he was touring with the Guess Who, subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 400 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with the legends of rock since 1982.