Tuesday 16 October 2012

Me & Burton Cummings




In the late 1970's I was with AGT (now known as TELUS) Broadcast Services. We were providing a satellite uplink for a Burton Cummings CBC live special. Rumor had it he was on the verge of leaving the Guess Who, and this was to be his first live solo performance.

The purpose of our meeting was to lay out the programming schedule for the portable AGT uplink to connect to the CBC satellite.

God knows why, but he showed up at our technical production meeting and appeared to confuse it for a performance production meeting.

We sat in stunned silence as Cummings raged about his various "cheap assed, idiotic problems". He ranted about everything from the size of his dressing room to the fact he didn't have a car and driver at his disposal. We didn't attempt to answer his shrieking demands, which was just as well. He clearly wasn't in a mood to listen anyway.

Eventually one of his toadies quietly clued him in. As he swept out of the room, entourage in tow, actually wearing a cape, his parting words were "F*CK ALL YOU EGGHEAD ASSHOLES!" 


Later I sat in the truck and watched the show live. The rude, crude son of a bitch absolutely crushed it. He was amazing.

3 comments:

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  2. Oh man. Priceless story ... and wearing a cape ... haha ! love it

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  3. Too funny, Mr Hamilton ..... thanks for sharing! And btw .... Happy Birthday!

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