PETER FRAMPTON + CARDINAL BLACK – ROYAL ALBERT HALL, LONDON 8.11.22
Peter Frampton: legendary guitarist and singer; former member of The Herd and Humble Pie; solo superstar, not to mention sideman for (and former school friend of) David Bowie. Tonight Peter is playing the Royal Albert Hall as part of his ‘Farewell Tour’. The reason that this is his farewell tour is a sad one: for Peter has Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM). This is a progressive muscle wasting disease. Peter needs help walking and can’t stand for very long, but his hands and arms are fine, so his playing is unaffected, as we shall see.
Support comes from Cardinal Black, who are that rarest of animals: a blues band from Cardiff. They comprise Tom Hollister on vocals, Chris Buck on guitar, Adam Roberts on drums and Sam Williams on bass. They also have a female backing singer who sadly doesn’t get a namecheck! Tom Hollister and Chris Buck are both utterly prodigious talents, Buck in particular lets rip with some utterly awesome licks. The material is rather impressive too. They headline at Islington Assembly Hall on 27th April. They’re definitely worth seeing. The Albert Hall audience think so too: the band are given a standing ovation. They have just released their debut album ‘January Came Close’, check it out HERE.
Before Peter Frampton takes the stage there is a recorded message from him asking people to only take photographs and videos on their phones for the first three songs, and after that to just “enjoy the moment”. Well, much as I approve of that sentiment, phones are now so much a part of people’s lives, that request is never going to be complied with. Peter is helped onstage by his keyboard player Rob Arthur. His now long-standing band comprise, in addition to Rob, John Regan on bass, Adam Lester on guitar, and Dan Wojciechowski on drums. Dan plays the same green drum kit as the late John Siomos played on the ‘Frampton ‘Comes Alive’ album. The kit isn’t the only instrumental alumni from that album. For part of the gig Peter plays the black Les Paul that he is sporting on the album cover. This guitar has a quite remarkable back story. The cargo plane in which it was travelling crashed and the guitar was considered to be lost. However, some thirty years later someone spotted the guitar for sale on eBay, alerted Frampton, and he was able to retrieve it. It’s “a little singed” apparently!
Whilst there’s no lack of playing during tonight’s gig (Peter will be onstage for two hours twenty minutes) Frampton is quite the raconteur, and we get quite a few stories too. For example, the song ‘The Lodger’ has its genesis in the house in St John’s Wood that Peter bought with his share of Humble Pie’s record company advance. It became known as the “party house”, and he came down one morning to make coffee and counted 23 people sleeping in the various rooms. One evening, a couple turned up at his door with suitcases, and said that they’d been told that he wouldn’t mind if they crashed there, and that they only wanted to stay “for three months”. He let them stay too.
The songs in the main set are exclusively from Peter’s solo career, with eight of ‘Frampton Comes Alive’’s fourteen songs being played. Although Peter was well known before that album, he was a superstar after it, and it is probably still his most well known and successful record. ‘Show Me The Way’, the biggest hit from ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ is the fourth song played, complete with talk box guitar solo. This was something that Peter became well known for using, and it was wonderful to see it demonstrated. Later in the set, someone calls out for him to use the talk box again. Peter responds “really?!!” He complies anyway.
Peter’s playing throughout is absolutely top rate, and it was very poignant indeed to think that we may not see him playing again. He comes across as being a very nice guy, and there’s a lot of love for him in the hall. His enthusiasm and love for what he does is palpable. The set ends with a long version of ‘Do You Feel Like We Do’, which is an absolute tour de force.
Peter tells us that normally he and the band would go offstage and come back on for an encore, but that would take too long, so they’re just going to carry on. I had hoped that they might do some Humble Pie material, but I must confess, I didn’t have high hopes. Well, not only do they do some, they start off with my favourite song from the ‘Performance: Rockin The Fillmore’ album: ‘Four Day Creep’. Nobody can match the vocal skills of the late great Steve Marriott (indeed, Frampton dedicates the show to him) so lead vocals for this one are shared between Rob Arthur, Adam Lester and Peter. That is followed by ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’, featuring an instrumental section of ‘Walk On Gilded Splinters’, both also from ‘Performance: Rockin’ The Fillmore’. Sadly all good things must come to an end, and Peter has already overrun the curfew, so the set finishes with a cover of George Harrison’s ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’.
This has been an absolutely outstanding gig. Peter’s playing and singing has been on fire. At the end he says that he won’t say goodbye: “never say never right?” More power to you Peter. I sincerely hope that we get the opportunity to see you play again.
Peter Frampton setlist:
‘Baby (Somethin’s Happening)’
‘Lying’
‘Lines On My Face’
‘Show Me The Way’
‘The Lodger’
‘It’s A Plain Shame’
‘All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side’)
‘Breaking All The Rules’
‘(I’ll Give You) Money’
‘Baby I Love Your Way’
‘Do You Feel Like We Do’
(encore)
‘Four Day Creep’
‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’ (including instrumental section of ‘Walk On Gilded Splinters’)
‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’
