Frampton comes alive... again!

NEW YORK CITY —  Switching nine guitars, including two acoustics, and a banjolele, ageless rock star Peter Frampton showed up for a thumping three-hour show without his ‘60s trademark long, curly locks and awed a sold-out crowd of 2,894 in celebrating the 35th anniversary of his historic Comes Alive tour at the Beacon Theater here recently.

It was the second of 80 stops in a musical journey that began in New Jersey two days before and will end in Paris on Nov. 23. The odyssey will go through North America, including shows in Canada, up to Oct. 22 in Nashville then resume with a 12-leg Europe tour starting in Lisbon on Nov. 5.

Frampton, 61, was dubbed “The Face” by the English pop media when he emerged as the teenyboppers’ most-stalked lead vocalist with The Herd in 1966. Then, he joined forces with Small Faces icon Steve Marriott to form Humble Pie using the same super-group formula as Blind Faith and Cream. In 1971, Frampton began a solo career that has brought him acclaim as a vocalist, composer and guitarist. In 1976, he released a live double-album Frampton Comes Alive! which sold six million copies that year and today, has run up to 16 million. Now, 35 years later, Frampton, his once flowing golden hair turned to closed-cropped silver, is back on stage to bring back memories of his smash tour in the twilight of a storybook career.

Beacon Theater is as historic as Frampton’s ascent to the top of the pops. The three-level indoor venue on upper Broadway in Manhattan was inaugurated in 1929 and underwent a $10M facelift two years ago. The “movie palace” remains as resplendent as ever with its bronze-door vestibule, an opulent two-story circular lobby, white marble floors, elaborate gilded plaster moldings, polished hardwood, brass staircase rails and corridor murals depicting an Eastern theme of elephants and camels in traveling caravans. Last month, Beacon hosted the 65th Tony Awards, broadcast on CBS-TV. The night before the Frampton concert, it showcased the Monkees’ reunion with Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork (the other original member Mike Nesmith refused to join).

Through the years, Frampton has kept busy in the studios. He survived a near fatal car crash in the Bahamas in 1978 and a drug addiction to resurface as a durable rocker into the new millennium. In 2006, Frampton cut an instrumental masterpiece Fingerprints which won a Grammy award and last year, issued his 14th studio album Thank You, Mr. Churchill.

A huge screen showing videos of Frampton in his glory days served as the backdrop for the concert at Beacon. He walked onto the stage wearing a long black scarf and a black jacket backed by four musicians — Rob Arthur on keyboards, Adam Lester on guitar, Stanley Sheldon on bass and Dan Wojciechowski on drums. The first song was Something’s Happening and the fans at the orchestra level quickly sprang to their feet, joining Frampton as he belted out the hit tune.

“I love New York City,” said Frampton after singing his first number. Then, he introduced his next song as “funky” and broke into Doobie Wah. Frampton engaged the audience in a fun conversation, exchanging “thank you’s” until he finally said that’s it “after 17 times.” The songs he dished out were from his hit parade, Show Me The Way, It’s A Plain Shame, All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side), (acoustic version) Baby, I Love Your Way, Do You Feel Like I Do (with the talk-box routine) I Wanna Go To The Sun and (I’ll Give You) Money. In all, Frampton did 17 tunes, including the intricate instrumental Penny For Your Thoughts, in the first half capped by Jumpin’ Jack Flash.

The crowd went wild in singing along to All I Want To Be and Baby, I Love Your Way. Frampton made sure he had solo moments with his guitar, showing his versatility and virtuosity. There’s no doubt Frampton belongs in the same playing level as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. He has a way of creating sweet sounds from his guitar, smoothly sliding his left hand up and down the neck while deftly picking the strings with his right or strumming harmoniously like a John Lennon or wildly like a Pete Townshend.

Frampton joked that during his younger days, he would refresh himself offstage by doing drugs or taking swigs from a bottle but at his age, he’s down to just Viagra and Flomax. “Mondays, Thursdays and twice on weekends — without the Flomax,” he chuckled.

After a 20-minute intermission, Frampton was back to do several tracks from Thank You, Mr. Churchill and Fingerprints. In a sentimental vein, Frampton spoke about how he spurned his father’s wishes in dropping out of school to pursue a musical career. His father was an art teacher in high school. Frampton was seven when he found his grandmother’s banjolele in the attic of their home in Beckenham, England, and taught himself to play. That led to the song Vaudeville Nanna and the Banjolele. Then, Frampton performed an electric version of All I Want To Be followed by three more instrumentals, ending with the Soundgarden cover of Black Hole Sun. He came back for an encore with the Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps using complex guitar effects and a hair-raising, three-minute introduction.

What was incredible was 30 minutes after the show, the producers made available an individually-numbered, three-CD digipak set of the entire concert that just ended, fully mixed and remastered, plus a “rockumentary” CD of a Frampton interview by Redbeard. The cost of the four-CD set was $35 — well worth preserving the memory of the 35th anniversary celebration. My copy was No. 62 of 3,000.

Rolling Stone writer Alan Light described the Frampton Comes Alive! tour as “the definitive musical document of the ‘70s” and said, “it’s hard to imagine any release today having a cultural event status like this.” Frampton, for his part, said he’s moved on from the revelry of the beat era and even won a Grammy in 2007 “but I figured it would be nice to do the whole thing.” Marco della Cava, writing in USA Today, said Frampton has returned from orbit to the stratosphere “that finds him playing the entire Comes Alive! opus, 14 songs that formed the soundtrack to many a Boomer’s life” and 15 more to complete a set list that couldn’t have been more appealing to at least two generations of rock fans.