ALIVE & KICKING

Peter Frampton’s diagnosis with a degenerative disease means May’s UK tour is likely to be his last. The guitar icon looks back at the triumphs and knocks of his career, into the eyes of his illness, and onto the music still to come…

- Henry Yates

Most farewell tours are not to be trusted. From KISS to Mötley Crüe, long-time observers of rock will know the routine: the valedictory arena shows, the two-year itch, the reunion album, then business as usual. But when Peter Frampton says goodbye at five UK dates this spring, the veteran guitarist truly means it – however desperately he wishes he didn’t.

News of Frampton’s situation can’t have escaped you. Nine years ago, the guitarist was newly into his 60s, and hiking up a mountain with his son when he found himself strangely fatigued. Back then, he dismissed it as the inevitable wear-and-tear of ageing. But when the guitarist began struggling to climb stairs and lift suitcases, then fell down repeatedly on stage in 2015, he visited a neurologist and had his fears confirmed. Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM) is a muscle-wasting condition that weakens limbs and threatens mobility. The symptoms grow progressively worse and there is currently no cure. “It was a devastating period,” reflects the 69-year-old family man, “for us all.”

But those same observers of rock will also know that Frampton is not a man to shrink from a battle. From his teenage band, The Herd, to the visceral blues-rock of Humble Pie with Steve Marriott in the late 60s, and onto a solo career that peaked commercially with 1976’s 11-million-selling Frampton Comes Alive!, there have been plenty of triumphs. But as Frampton reminds us, if he can return from car crashes and career wilderness, then he can fight back from this diagnosis and keep making music, somehow, somewhere.

Every live show you play must mean so much to you now?