Blue-collar rockers roll on Randy Bachman puts together new BTO lineup for one more trip down the highway By: Eva Wasney Posted: 6:22 PM CDT Wednesday, Apr. 16, 2025 Last Modified: 9:31 AM CDT Thursday, Apr. 17, 2025 Updates

Winnipeg has been top of mind lately for Randy Bachman.

Last month, the 81-year-old guitarist and co-founder of acclaimed local rock bands the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive released the single 60 Years Ago — a tribute to his cold, snowy birthplace and musical peers.

“It’s a gift back to Winnipeg about growing up there and how great Winnipeg was as a teenager for me and Neil Young and Burton Cummings and Fred Turner in the ’60s. It was like the Liverpool of Canada; it was just amazing,” ” Bachman said in a recent interview.

The first new BTO song in more than 25 years features vocals by Turner and guitar by Young, with backing support from Bachman’s son Tal and daughter-in-law Koko.

Fond hometown reminiscing has been a two-way street.

The band has been rolling on down the Trans-Canada Highway for the last two weeks on an eastbound revival tour. Formed in Winnipeg in the 1970s, BTO is set to play its first hometown show in decades on Sunday — albeit with a reconfigured lineup.

The group was originally set to play at Canada Life Centre on Saturday, but the concert was bumped to accommodate the first game of the NHL playoffs. In an announcement late Wednesday, Bachman said he was “thrilled to see the Jets take their best-in-league record into the playoffs,” and planned to be in the stands as the team faced off against the St. Louis Blues.

But first, he has some business to take care of.

Tomorrow afternoon, members of the band will attend a ceremony to celebrate the renaming of the Disraeli Freeway to Bachman-Turner Overdrive, an honorary designation spurred on by Winnipeg city councillors Ross Eadie and Markus Chambers.

“Their music not only shaped a generation but also inspired countless artists across Canada and beyond. We’re proud to recognize their roots here in our city,” Chambers said in a media release.

For Bachman, the 2025 Back in Overdrive Tour is something of a victory lap.

Prior to departing for the two-month journey from Victoria to Halifax, he was looking forward to getting back to work following several years of health scares and personal tragedies.

“I’m happy to be alive and on stage and rocking and rolling,” Bachman said over the phone from his home on Vancouver Island.

In 2020, he contracted COVID-19 and double pneumonia and later received several cancer diagnoses. Then in 2023, Bachman’s younger brothers and original BTO members, Robbie and Tim, died within months of one another.

Yet, the family band dynamic lives on with the group’s current lineup.

Husband-and-wife duo Tal and Koko Bachman have joined the touring roster — on guitar/vocals and drums, respectively — along with Lance Lapointe (bass) and Brent Howard (guitar).

Turner is not currently performing with BTO.

Tal, 56, is well-versed on the material. “I’ve played with dad in all sorts of configurations pretty much my whole life, so I don’t feel like I’m replacing or displacing (my uncles); it’s a continuation of what all the brothers started all those years ago,” he said.

And Koko has taken to performing in the same style as the late Robbie Bachman, a left-handed drummer who played on a right-handed kit.

“Koko channels Robbie. I think BTO fans will be amazed,” Bachman said.

Sunday’s show at Canada Life Centre is set to include hits from the band’s lauded catalogue, such as Let It Ride, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet and Takin’ Care of Business, as well as covers of Tal’s 1999 release She’s So High and a handful of Guess Who favourites.

While Bachman-Turner Overdrive will continue touring through the United States this summer, the band’s homecoming is likely a final farewell.

“We’re still going, but this time through Winnipeg might be the last,” Bachman said.

Although, he’s not opposed to a different kind of victory lap with the Guess Who.

Last fall, Bachman and Burton Cummings acquired the trademark for the band’s name after settling a yearslong lawsuit with former bandmates Jim Kale and Garry Peterson.

“There will be an announcement coming,” Bachman said, teasing the possibility of a Guess Who reunion. Friday’s road designation ceremony takes place at 1 p.m. at the Oseredok Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre, 184 Alexander Ave., near the Disraeli Bridge.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com