why yes, mr. frampton, I like you just fine live

We went to see Peter Frampton and Yes on Friday at the old Garden State Arts Center.

And it was good. Frampton still rocks, despite being balder, but his fingers certainly know how to love on a guitar. Steve Howe, continues to look like a small breeze could topple him, continues to make Starship Trooper glow like sunshine in the air when he plays.

We went with another couple and the evening was fun except for the unruly drunks sitting behind us that decided being at a concert meant conversing loudly at each other continually, until I'd had enough and politely asked them to Please Shut The Fuck Up! People, trying to chat at a concert is really a waste of your time and generally bound to piss someone off. Specifically someone like me, who will tell you when you are being assholes. I came to listen to music not your relationship problems.

Hearing Frampton Live did haul out a few distant memories of my first introduction to his wicked guitar playing. Those memories are hazy from age yet sharply defined for the people coloring them.

I was nine and we were at the house of family friends, where the adults would hang around the dining room table, talking, smoking, having a few drinks. I was left to occupy myself for the few hours we were there because this was my parent’s time and kids back in the 70’s were expected to entertain themselves. I spent a lot of time in my head, crafting stories, imaginary worlds and daydreaming. And being bored out of my mind. There is only so much enjoyment one can get from a pet rock, however. They are notoriously taciturn

My parent’s friends had a daughter, who was quite a few years older than me, and sometimes she took pity on me and let me hover around the edges of her room, talking to me and helping me stave off a few hours of boredom. .

She had just bought the Frampton Comes Alive album earlier that week and asked me if I had heard it yet. Since David Cassidy was my heartthrob du jour, I can’t say I’d even heard of Peter Frampton. I told her no and she asked me in to listen to it.

Donna was your typical 70’s girl. Long straight dark blond hair framing a face still slightly round in the cheeks with these beautiful clear blue eyes that I was insanely jealous of as I was a little on the plump side, had unruly brown hair with plain brown eyes framed by thick glasses. She wore bell bottom jeans, wide white belts and peasant tops. She was cool. I was…not.

And now I was being asked to listen to rock music, in her room. Okay! Life was looking up! Maybe the coolness would rub off.

I sat on the shag carpet in her room, the LP crackling on the turntable before music came pouring through the speakers. I remember looking at the shaggy haired guy on the cover while listening to my first live album. I didn’t like it very much. (You were expecting some epiphany of music enlightenment, weren’t you?) The weird noises his guitar made just didn’t compare to the Bay City Rollers, Shawn or David Cassidy to my mind. I didn’t like the sound of the audience cheering in the background, it was distracting. But I was oh so grateful to be included by her instead of banished to the living room again. I think that made me like Peter Frampton more than the music.

Years down the road, out parents still close friends, Donna got sick. She had been married for just a few years, after being engaged once before and having several on again, off again romances. They had bought their first home, were trying to get pregnant.

It turned out Donna had AIDS, gotten from a previous boyfriend who had used needle drugs. He found out that he had it not long before Donna did and never told anyone. She died not that long after. She was the only child of devoted parents and they were heartbroken.

Donna doesn’t turn up in my memories that often but sitting at the Arts Center, a short distance not far from where I heard it the very first time, listening to Frampton Live, audience cheering in the background, I recalled the day she included a bored young girl in her excitement of a new album. It made me smile and stand up to cheer along to Frampton’s guitar singing Something’s Happening.