Don Felder & The Guess Who — Takin’ It Back Tour, Leader Bank Pavilion, Boston

SOME SHOWS SNEAK UP ON YOU. On Friday, July 17th at the Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston’s Seaport, this was one of them for me.

The Guess Who wasn’t exactly on my bingo card. Not because I don’t love them — I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember — but because they belong to a certain category of legendary that starts to feel almost mythological over time. You assume the members are scattered, retired, or gone. And then six months ago I found out they were touring, and something clicked. I had to be there.

Don Felder opened, and if you’re coming in thinking former Eagles guitarist playing a support slot — recalibrate. Felder opened with a smart mix of his solo work alongside a handful of Eagles hits, and the man walked out looking like Ralph Lauren decided to pick up a guitar and never put it down. White jacket, easy confidence, the kind of presence that doesn’t need to announce itself. He played “Already Gone,” “One of These Nights,” “Victim of Love,” “Seven Bridges Road,” “Heartache Tonight,” “Life in the Fast Lane,” and then — inevitably, perfectly — “Hotel California.” Recreating that iconic guitar solo literally took the crowd back to 1976. He made it look effortless in the way only someone who has played something ten thousand times can — not mechanical, just free. A class act from start to finish.

Then came the main event.

Currently led by Burton Cummings and guitarist Randy Bachman, The Guess Who plowed through a barrage of classics. I won’t pretend the years haven’t touched them — they have. These aren’t young men running around a stage anymore. But there’s a different kind of energy that comes with age and comfort, and these two had it in abundance: smiling at each other, cracking jokes between songs, playing like men who genuinely still enjoy being up there. That matters more than I expected it to.

They played their first gold record early on, “Hand Me Down World,” followed by a stellar version of “These Eyes.” Both are the kind of songs that feel like they’ve always existed — like they were discovered rather than written. After a deep cut in “Albert Flasher,” Bachman took the mic for the BTO hit “Let It Ride,” which the crowd welcomed like an old friend showing up unannounced. “Clap for the Wolfman,” “Laughing,” and “Undun” followed — the latter carrying that quiet anti-drug weight that still lands in a room full of people old enough to remember what it meant.

“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” lit the audience up yet again, and then after “Bus Driver,” the band shifted into closing gear with “American Woman” — during the long introduction to which they burst into a stretch of “Roadhouse Blues” by The Doors, very fitting given that Cummings was wearing a Doors t-shirt all night. The crowd loved it. The “No Sugar Tonight / New Mother Nature” pairing that followed was one of those moments where a song you’ve heard a thousand times suddenly sounds new again — live, outdoors, Boston air, everyone around you knowing every word.

The encore brought a moving rendition of “Share the Land” before closing out with “Takin’ Care of Business,” Bachman leading the crowd in a sing-along competition that the crowd took very seriously and won decisively.

I left having gotten exactly what I didn’t know I needed: two legends, one night, no pretense, just the songs doing what songs like these do when you let them. The Leader Bank Pavilion held it well. The city showed up. And the Guess Who, older and maybe slower, still sounded like the reason they became legendary in the first place.

Worth every minute of the wait.

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