Peter Frampton and The Doobies
Posted by: rxdca <rxdca@...>
you all (and no, I'm not off my meds and in manic phase with all these
messages today, just have a little free time on my hands).
I went to see Peter Frampton and The Doobie Brothers last Saturday night
in Valdosta. It was a little warm out at first, being South GA and all,
but once the sun started to set it wasn't bad.
Frampton opened the show, which really surprised me. I thought he would
be the headliner. That may be the case in other parts of the country,
but that sure ain't true in South GA. As we were standing in line to
get into the reserved seats section (I coughed up the extra $30 to get
reserved seats) there was a guy standing in line behind wearing a
"Harley" t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a little "V" cut at the
neckline, with his graying wife and her fake (um, well, you know) and
leopard print hot pants. Definitely NOT how I want to see a grandmother
dressed. She asked who the warm-up group was and I heard him say, "Some
British guy. The Doobies are going to kick his a** off the stage."
Some "British Guy"??? You've got to be kidding...
The first thing I noticed about Peter Frampton, or rather didn't notice,
was his height. In the South GA parlance, he's a little feller. I
noticed his hair, too, 'cause he ain't got none of that either. Thank
goodness he wasn't trying to wear a wig to cover that chrome dome. He
did wear a veneer over his teeth, but that was the ONLY thing veneer
about him. The guy can still play. I mean jaw-dropping play. I sat
there mesmerized the whole time. I was close enough to watch his
fingers. It was amazing. The other thing I noticed was his gear, or
lack of it. No Marshall stacks like in the old days. He did have some
Marshall cabs on stage and they were mic'd. But I think his sound
generation was purely digital. Digital pre-amp, digital effects, power
amp, then to the cabs (if he was actually using them). But his playing
was spectacular. Played nothing but Les Pauls. His bass player has
been with him since the 70's and played nothing but Fender P-basses. The
only bass amp in sight was a small combo, looked like maybe an Ampeg 100
watt thingy. They were fantastic. Oh, the other thing, one thing that
I've noticed about the geriatric rockers is that they lose the ability
to hit the high notes when they sing. Frampton could still sing. He
sang, "Peach top, white tails, never fails." Still don't know what it
means.
There was a pretty good break in between the bands. When the Doobies
took the stage I found out who the crowd was there to see. They played
a good selection of their best songs and threw in a couple of jam songs
(blues, rockers). The thing about the Doobies... they gave up the
pretense of even having cabs on stage. John McFee played through a Line
6 PODxt Live floor unit (the same unit I use, I've e-mailed his son to
see if he will share his patches) and even used Line 6 guitars. Pat
Simmons and Tom Johnston both played through digital modelers as well,
thought I couldn't really tell which ones (I couldn't see enough of
Johnston's unit, but maybe it was a Lexicon G-major). Simmons was
pretty gray, but still had butt-length hair. He struggled to hit the
high notes. Johnston sang pretty well, but then again, none of his
songs were a real vocal stretch to begin with. They only did one
Michael McDonald song (thank goodness), Taking it to the Streets.
Simmons sang it and did a decent McDonald imitation. They let their
bass player and keyboard player go to town on that one. The best song
of the entire night was "Jesus is Just Alright." The crowd roared when
they went "doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo!"
It was a whole lot of fun. It was the first secular concert I've been
to in 20 years. The air was clean, none of the pungent aroma that I
remembered from similar concerts back in my heathen days.
--
Douglas
[email protected]
Well, there's people been talking
Say they're worried about my soul
But I'm here to tell you I'll keep rocking
'til I'm sure it's my time to roll
-Rich Mullins "Elijah"
Phil 4:13