I agree with Jason Brown, who, the article states, noted that the piano chord in the background is critical to capturing the overall sound. Listening to this, I hear everything but the touch of dissonance added by the piano, which completely changes the feel of the chord.

Listen to this and the original[1], you can clearly hear a missing piano part, which gives the chord such a crunchy bite. The damper pedal is clearly depressed as well, and it sounds like there is some sympathetic resonance from the guitars/bass that's helping to muddy up the piano sound.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSm0M-BbVdY

The original sounds a bit lower to me.

Link for comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSm0M-BbVdY

Presto. Compared the chord that Randy Bachman played against the original track and it sounds exactly the same to me. For anyone else interested in knowing what the 12-string chord is, pretty sure this is what he described:

1st string = G on the 3rd fret (pinky) 2nd string = C on the 1st fret (pointer finger) 3rd string = A on the 2nd fret (middle finger) 4th string = F on the 3rd fret (ring finger) 5th string = C on the 3rd fret (with the thumb, curl it over) 6th string = G on the 3rd fret (with the thumb as well)