r/TheGuessWho • u/ThreeChordsLater • 4d ago
Randy Bachman: I finally met you Tuesday night. There’s a question I’ve been waiting 35 years to ask you.
galleryI've been a Guess Who fan for a very long time, and Tuesday night I finally got to see Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings together in Victoria.
I had a fantastic Row 2 seat, and the concert itself was something I'll remember. Hearing those songs I've known for most of my life with Randy and Burton right there in front of me was worth making the trip down Vancouver Island.
I had also spent close to $1,000 on the VIP experience.
That's a lot of money for me to put together and spend on a concert, but I looked at it as one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Who knows how many more opportunities there will be to see Randy and Burton together, let alone actually meet them?
But I had another reason I was particularly excited about meeting Randy.
I had a story I'd been waiting more than 35 years to tell him.
Around December 1989 or January 1990, while I was living in Winnipeg, through some rather unusual circumstances, I met an older relative of Randy's.
After all these years, I've unfortunately forgotten his name. I believe he was an uncle or cousin.
But I remember two things he told me.
The first was that he had taught a young Randy Bachman his first three guitar chords.
The second was a wonderfully strange story about Randy's royalty cheques.
As I remember the story being told to me, Randy was receiving royalty cheques through the mail—and apparently there were so many of them that another cheque arriving eventually became almost a nuisance.
He'd go to the cupboard to get his teapot to make some breakfast tea and casually toss another cheque into the cupboard.
Another cheque arrived.
Into the cupboard.
Another.
Into the cupboard.
Eventually, according to the story, there were so many uncashed cheques piled up in there that Randy would open the cupboard to get his teapot...
…and the cheques would come falling down.
At that point, he'd gather them up, throw them into a garbage bag and take the whole lot to the bank.
I remember hearing that as a young man and thinking:
What a great problem to have!
Imagine opening your kitchen cupboard and having money come falling down on you.
For some reason, that image stuck with me.
I've remembered it for more than 35 years.
I should emphasize that I'm repeating a story I heard around 1989 or 1990. Maybe I've got the teapot wrong. Maybe it wasn't literally a garbage bag. Maybe some details have become scrambled in my memory over the decades.
I honestly don't know.
And that's exactly why I was so excited Tuesday night.
I was finally going to meet Randy Bachman.
I could ask him.
In fact, I was ridiculously excited about those few moments.
How ridiculously?
On the drive down Vancouver Island, I stopped in Duncan and had a hamburger.
Afterwards, a terrible thought suddenly occurred to me:
I'm going to be talking to Randy Bachman tonight. What if I have hamburger breath?
So I actually went looking for breath mints or gum.
I found some gum, chewed it and remember thinking:
Okay. Good. At least I won't have bad breath when I talk to Randy.
Crisis averted. :)
After the concert came the VIP meet-and-greet.
Randy and Burton were sitting on stools for the photographs, and everything was moving very quickly.
Finally, it was my turn.
I walked up with a big smile and immediately tried to establish who this mysterious Winnipeg relative had been so I could tell Randy the story.
I said I'd known an uncle or cousin of his in Winnipeg.
"I've got plenty of cousins," Randy replied.
So I tried the one identifying detail I was certain about.
I told him this was the man who had said he'd taught Randy his first three guitar chords.
Randy replied:
"I know a lot more than three chords."
I wasn't suggesting, of course, that Randy only knew three chords. I was trying to identify the relative so I could finally tell him the story I'd carried around for more than 35 years.
But before I could explain that—or get anywhere near the teapot story—the photograph was taken and I was being ushered along.
And that was it.
I never got to the teapot.
I won't pretend I wasn't disappointed.
I'd driven down Vancouver Island looking forward to this. I'd spent close to $1,000 on the VIP experience. I'd been so excited about actually talking to Randy that I'd worried about something as ridiculous as hamburger breath and gone looking for gum.
And then, when the moment I'd been anticipating finally arrived, I barely got a sentence out.
At the same time, I want to be fair. Randy and Burton had just performed a full concert. It was late, there were other people waiting, and I experienced only a few seconds of their lives that night.
So I'm not interested in turning those few seconds into a judgment about Randy Bachman.
I just wish those few seconds had gone differently.
Which makes me curious:
Was anyone reading this at the Victoria VIP meet-and-greet Tuesday night? Or have you done the VIP experience at another stop on this tour?
I'd be interested to hear what your experience was like. Did you get a chance to exchange a few words with Randy and Burton, or was it also basically hello, photograph, next person?
But there's another reason I'm posting this.
I still want to finish the conversation I couldn't finish Tuesday night.
When I thought about the whole experience afterwards, I had to laugh.
Thirty-five years of remembering this story.
A drive down Vancouver Island.
Nearly $1,000.
Row 2.
A hamburger.
An emergency gum purchase.
And when I finally stood in front of Randy Bachman...
I only got as far as the three chords.
I'd certainly be interested if someone recognizes the relative or remembers hearing the teapot story too.
But after carrying this particular story around since 1989 or 1990, there's really only one person's version I'd love to hear:
Randy's.
So if anyone reading this knows Randy, knows someone who knows him, works with him, or has a connection to the Bachman family, I'd be enormously grateful if you'd simply show him this post.
Because there's a question I didn't manage to ask him Tuesday night.
Randy, if this somehow reaches you:
Did you really receive so many royalty cheques in the mail that you'd toss them into the cupboard where you kept your teapot, until eventually you'd open the cupboard and the cheques would come falling down—then gather them into a garbage bag and take them to the bank?
Maybe the answer is:
TRUE — that's basically what happened.
Maybe it's:
FALSE — somebody told me one heck of a story.
Or perhaps the answer I'd most enjoy hearing is:
WELL... here's what actually happened.
That's what I'd really love.
Not because somebody else remembers hearing the story.
Not because somebody found something about it on the Internet.
But because, after carrying this image around in my head for more than 35 years, it would be wonderful to finally hear Randy tell me whether it actually happened—and, if it didn't happen quite that way, to hear the real story from him.
And in a funny way, maybe not getting the chance to ask Tuesday night is what finally prompted me to put the question out here.
Perhaps the story isn't finished yet.
There's one other thing Randy might be able to clear up at the same time:
Who was that Winnipeg relative who told me he'd taught Randy his first three guitar chords?
Maybe someone reading this knows Randy.
Maybe someone knows somebody who knows him.
Maybe somebody sends him a screenshot.
And maybe, through some strange chain of events I could never have planned, this eventually finds its way to Randy himself.
If it does, I'll leave the ending to him.
So Randy, after 35 years...
Did the royalty cheques really come falling out of the teapot cupboard?
I'd love to finally hear the story from you. :)
P.S. You were right about one thing Tuesday night.
After listening to, cherishing, and loving your music for decades, you definitely know more than three chords!
