The Musical Box

peter frampton. photo by david dobson.

Did you know Peter Frampton was a neighbor? For the better part of the past decade, the artist that turned Frampton Comes Alive into one of the top selling concert albums of all time has resided to the north of us in Cincinnati. Now the big question, did you know the pop superstardom Frampton gained and lost in the ‘70s is but a chapter in a rock ‘n’ roll life that stems back 40 years?

Stumped? Then last night’s unexpectedly vast, guitar-rich career overview performance and homecoming at Cincinnati’s National City Pavilion was for you.

Admittedly, much of the crowd came to hear music Frampton penned for his first four albums that re-surfaced on Frampton Comes Alive in 1976. Some of the tunes have aged almost eerily well, like Lines on My Face, whose soft-spoken sentimentality, not to mention an arrangement of Santana-ish cool, revealed a strangely sagely quality. Others like Baby I Love Your Way remained disposable pop confections.

The program’s more arresting moments came almost in spite of Frampton Comes Alive. For Wind of Change, originally the title tune to his 1972 debut album, Frampton strayed little from the acoustic version fashioned for Frampton Comes Alive. But he dedicated the tune to George Harrison, whose guitar tunings inspired the composition in the first place. The Beatle was more roundly acknowledged during an encore update of his signature song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps which Frampton sang and soloed on with solid emotive authority.

Equally intriguing were the often monstrous instrumentals pulled from 2006’s Grammy-winning Fingerprints album (”I had to live in Ohio for five years before I won one,” Frampton remarked to the crowd). Jeff Beck seemed to be the role model here as Boot It Up and a fittingly cranky version of the Soundgarden hit Black Hole Sun bordered on an almost corrosive mix of funk and fusion. The songs were also highlights in a performance that strived to underscore Frampton’s sometimes neglected reputation as a guitarist.

The biggest delight, though, closed the show. It wasn’t a hit, but a wildly electric take on Ashford & Simpson’s I Don’t Need No Doctor that was once a performance staple of Humble Pie, the maverick British band Frampton was a member of prior to his solo career. Frampton favored clarity over the death rattle urgency injected into the tune by the late Steve Marriott on another epic concert album, Humble Pie’s Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore. But there was a wildness still to this reading that illuminated corners of a pop life seldom explored by Frampton fans.

Sure, it was fun to watch the audience light up and smile along with the hits. But hearing Frampton make room for Harrison, Humble Pie and his newer guitar-slinging exploits was what made this homecoming really come alive.