Wow. In their heyday, the Guess Who would barely look out the window as they flew over Dauphin. Even in their less-than-heydays, they’d barely slowdown. Mind you, former Guess Who guitarist Kurt Winter (now deceased) was from Dauphin, and we used to see him up there occasionally.

But this is big news.  Burton Cummings, the man who fronted the Guess Who when their 60’s hits kept the Beatles from hitting Number 1 on the Billboard charts, the very same Burton Cummings, is opening the new Credit Union Place in Dauphin.

He doesn’t own it or anything – he’s just opening it.

Holy Moly. 

That picture of Burt has got to be 30 years old. It might even be at one of those shows the Guess Who did at Rainbow Stage in Winnipeg. That was me in row 12 going ‘wooowoo’.

And check out this pricing.  “Default, Hedley and Guests” are 40 bucks, and one of the biggest names in rock history is only 60 bucks.  More Dauphin bargains for you. I kinda doubt he hauls out the white grand piano for 60 buck-a-head gigs (tax and service charges included!).

I wonder if Burt’ll make an appearance at my old station CKDM (now thoroughly country I believe).  What d’ya think Bruce? I’ll bet there’ll be more than a few 50-something babes cruising the stage door at the Credit Union Place after this gig. 

I’ve met Burt exactly twice.

Once at his ‘after’ party when he was the host of the Juno Awards.  The Toronto cops showed up at the party suite after some idiot called them because he dropped his wallet in the toilet. Toronto’s finest spent a few minutes at the door talking with Tiny (“nothing going on here officers”) then left after someone fished the billfold out of the john.

The second time was in Vancouver when he was a guest on Coast to Coast, a radio show I produced for CBC. He was totally charming.

So Burt, have a great show in my old home town, and do let me know what a Credit Union Place is, exactly.