Lena Friesen

@agincourtgirl.bsky.social

Music, food, books and Mennonite common sense. Library worker, sometime writer about music and native of Los Angeles living in that there South London. #MDANT

@bowiesongs.bsky.socialReposted by @agincourtgirl.bsky.social

"His stage is nice. His music is nice. Most of all, his fans are nice. They can't be any other way, because even at full amplification Peter has all the impact of a Valium getdown...able to make 'Jumping Jack Flash' sound like a friendly song" Lester Bangs on Peter Frampton, Village Voice, 25 Oct 76

Peter Frampton Is Nice Nice NiceBy Lester Bangs Two things surprised me about the audience for the first of three sold-out Peter Frampton concerts at the Garden last week. The first was that they were not all 14 years old; there was also a smattering of what looked amazingly like parents and even, in one case, grandparents in attendance. The second surprise was that the 14 year olds were so well-behaved. I only saw one fight, and even that ended pretty quickly, the drunken grapplers swinging back dazedlyn to bob and clap to Peter's sinuous improvisations before the ushers could get there to kick them out. Of course, surprises were in order: I had never bothered to listen to a Frampton album all the way through, and was mildly surprised to be told by A&M that his live double album had sold 10 million copies in 10 months, topping Tapestry's previous record of 14 nonconsecutive weeks as Number One in Record World by two weeks and thereby establishing Frampton as the first (and so far only) superstar to emerge in '76. I was also surprised to find such a metal-rooted rocker as Frampton—who, after all, rose to initial prominence among stomp-and-thud standard-bearers Humble Pie—playing a set that opened acoustic and in its two-and-a-half hours rose more in volume than intensity, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. Everybody knows that the standard way to make yourself a popstar today is to go MOR. Frampton claims that he always wanted to rock with as much of a nonvengeance as he displayed on Friday night and on Frampton Comes Alive!, and left Humble Pie on the eve of their breakout because he was frustrated with their relentlessly grungy format. After seeing and hearing him play with such wide-eyed sincerity, I believe him. So perhaps it is a case, for once, of an artist's taste and his audience's meeting at just the right moment in time. Peter Frampton is achieving stupendous popularity because he's nice. Audiences are tiring of an endless succession of performers …
Older posts