Peter Frampton "Comes Alive 35" Tour, Featuring Cool Guitars and Ukulele!

A couple of nights ago I had the great privilege to see the amazing Peter Frampton on his "Frampton Comes Alive 35" Tour.  I was also fortunate to snap a few pixtures during the show.  This is a tour begun in 2011 in honor of the 35th anniversary of the famous "Frampton Comes Alive" double album, originally released in 1976.

The guy is pretty amazing.  It's clear he's having a great time, and he just burns on the geetar.   I was astounded by his stamina. 

When I was growing up, the original Frampton Comes Alive record was everywhere - it got huge radio play, everybody had a copy, etc.

He played a whole bunch of guitars during the show:
- Newer Gibson Les Paul sunburst
- Newer Les Paul Custom
- An old, beat up Les Paul Custom :-)
- Gibson ES-335 - cherry, block markers
- Early 60s SG Les Paul with inlaid ebony tailblock (he's had this since his Humble Pie days)
- Red Fender Strat, white guard, maple board
- Gibson acoustic - looked to be "D" size - not slope-shoulder - with "The Gibson" on the head.
- Dreadnaught-style acoustic - brand unknown.
- Martin D-42 (I believe, likely the Frampton model?)
- Koaloha soprano ukulele (with a Planet Waves tuner clipped to the head)

Here he is with "the" guitar - his famous, iconic 1954 Gibson Les Paul Custom pictured on the cover of FCA (and elsewhere...).  This is the guitar that went down in a cargo plane crash in Curaçao in 1980 and was recently recovered.  Here's more on the story.

As an aside, 1954 was the first year Gibson offered the LP Custom model.

He's having a good time, don't you think?

He played the entire FCA album in its entirety, then played another set of his newer material.  If you get a chance to see him, I highly recommend it.  He's a fantastic player and a class act.

One of the last tunes he did was a tune called "Vaudeville Nanna and the Banjolele."  He played the opening on his Koaloha soprano uku.  I realized after I got home and looked at the pictures that I have the same clip-on tuner too!  (It's a little Planet Waves model).