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BTO headed back to Vancouver Island and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet

Band’s 2025 tour ready to give new life to a rock sound like no other in April 1 Victoria date
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Randy Bachman returns to the Victoria stage with BTO, along with Tal Bachman, Lance LaPointe, Brent Howard and Koko Bachman.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive, known affectionately by their fans as BTO, is back, and they’re still rocking the house in a way that only they can.

The band’s distinctive genius gave us iconic hits like Takin' Care of Business and, back in their early days, they were topping the charts with a score of top-40 singles and albums, earning multiple awards and honours.

And, with multiple Juno awards and an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2014, it would be easy to dismiss BTO as a great band of the past and leave it at that.

That would be a mistake.

BTO is alive and well and frontman Randy Bachman has breathed new life into the band. In 2023 he announced that BTO and their honest rock sound was back with the same musical energy that made them great in the 1970s.

“I learned at an early age that I was given something special when I was born, and that was the gift of music,” Bachman says.

This time out, Bachman has enlisted Lance LaPointe on bass and vocals, Brent Howard on guitar and vocals and Koko Bachman on drums.

He’s also enlisted his son, Tal Bachman, to join him on lead vocals and guitar.

“BTO started out back in the '70s as a family band and now my dad wants to return to those family roots,” Tal says.

"We’re just a bunch of guys on stage having a ball playing classic kick-ass rock music."

Of course, Tal brings his own musical chops to the mix. He’s enjoyed his own success as a solo artist with a couple of Juno awards and Canadian Radio Music awards. Still, he’s thrilled to join with his father to become part of the revived BTO.

“I love the fact that dad has been true to the music. We are still playing that straight ahead rock that people love,” he says.

Tal Bachman has seen too many bands from the past lose their confidence and their soul, succumbing to the temptation of using digitized grids and prerecorded drum tracks that ensure that the tempo never changes and the minor mistakes that give character to a sound are eliminated.

“We’re not trying to bring back the BIC lighters of the past, but we’re not going to get on that digitized train. We’re just a bunch of guys on stage having a ball playing classic kick-ass rock music,” Tal says.

“Our fans don’t want to see guys being hip ... they don’t want that ... my dad and the band are firmly rooted in doing the songs and having a great time. There’s no click track dictating the rhythm and no backing track. It’s all just us and it always will be.”

And although the band has come up with some new tunes, don’t expect to hear a lot of that in their concerts

“We don’t want to do a BTO tour and do 10 brand new songs,” Tal says. “No one wants to hear that. They want it to be something like the 1975 BTO experience – authentic rock music played by guys who love what they’re doing.

Fans in Victoria will have the chance to experience BTO for themselves when the band plays at the , along with April Wine and Headpins.

 





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