Peter Frampton – The Met – Philadelphia (A PopEntertainment.com Concert Review)

Peter Frampton – The Met – Philadelphia, PA – September 19, 2024

When you have recorded what could arguably be called the most iconic live album in rock history, you really have to bring it when you hit the concert stage. Considering that Frampton Comes Alive is now 48 years old, and in recent years, the singer/guitarist has been plagued by physical issues, you would be forgiven for assuming that Peter Frampton may have lost a step.

You would be wrong.

Oh, sure, due to his dealing with inclusion body myositis (IBM) – an autoimmune disease that affects his muscles, particularly his legs, but also his fingers – the once spry rock guitarist had to come on stage with a cane and had to sit through the complete set. (Frampton’s band also sat throughout the show, in solidarity with their leader.)

However, even if he isn’t physically up to doing some of the heavy lifting that he once did as a performer, his talent as an artist has barely dimmed. His vocals are still as crystal clear and ringing as they ever were. And despite the slight lack of strength in his fingers, his guitar work was still spot on. (In an interview about his condition, Frampton acknowledged that while he may not always have the raw power he once had, luckily his fingers still know what to do.)

If you closed your eyes and just listened to the music, you’d think you were back in the 1970s.

Also, his personality as a host and showman is still top notch, with Frampton regularly engaging the audience, good-heartedly joking about his condition and showing his determination to beat it. You could tell from his upbeat stage presence why the tour is named “The Positively Thankful Tour.”

He was particularly engaged because he said that Philadelphia has always been a favorite tour stop for him, ever since he played in front of the largest crowd of his career at the old JFK Stadium – a double bill of Frampton and Yes performed for a packed audience of 120,000 Philadelphians in June of 1976.

The crowd at The Met on this night may have been a bit smaller (the 3,500-seat venue seemed pretty full), but they were no less enthusiastic.

Frampton set things off on a good foot with a sizzle reel of vintage Frampton video, followed by his early jangle-rock slammer “Day in the Sun.” He followed this up with rocking versions of slightly lesser-known fan favorites such as “Lying,” “Lines on My Face” and a version of his Humble Pie song “Shine On.”

It didn’t take all that long for the hits to come out, though, as the crowd went wild when Frampton said, “All right, take it away, boys” and started playing the iconic acoustic chords and talk-box opening of his first huge hit, “Show Me the Way.” This led to a group of sweet ballads, with the folk-reggae tinged “The Crying Clown” and the short instrumental “Nassau” leading into another one of his biggest hits, the gorgeous love song “Baby I Love Your Way.”

He followed it up with a surprisingly shredding instrumental cover of Ray Charles’ classic “Georgia On My Mind,” a sweet ballad which took on a new toughness in this power chord-based reinterpretation. Later in the show, Frampton and his band did a similar, mostly instrumental reinvention of Soundgarden’s power ballad “Black Hole Sun,” which also rocked like a mother. (On this second one, Frampton used his talk box to sing the final chorus.)

Another huge ballad from his past – and one that had been sidelined for a long time – was “I’m In You.” “I don’t usually do this one. I haven’t done it in many years,” Frampton explained, “but it actually was the biggest hit I ever had.” It’s a shame that Frampton has avoided this stunning ballad, although I sort of get the fact that he may have complicated feelings about it. His record label at the time pressured him to follow up Frampton Comes Alive before he was ready and while this song may have been huge, the album it accompanied was considered a disappointment and stopped the forward momentum of his superstardom. Still, it was nice to hear the song again.

Then he closed out the main set with a slamming 17-minute version of his rock classic “Do You Feel Like We Do.”

For the encore, he returned to the Humble Pie playbook for with “Four Day Creep” – on which he allowed his band to take the lead – and “I Don’t Need No Doctor.” Then he closed out on a fun, light-hearted cover of The Dave Clark Five’s “Glad All Over.”

Frampton played and sang for about two-and-a-half hours, and it still felt way too short. (Some dude in the men’s room after the show claimed that Frampton had played 45 minutes longer than on any other stop this tour, but who knows who that guy was and how he would possibly know this. The setlist seemed to be pretty consistent with the other shows.)

Either way, it’s good to see that almost five decades later, Frampton still comes alive.