Less than a week after Eddie Vedder donned Jack White’s signature Acoustasonic for a rampaging deep cut, Pearl Jam welcomed Peter Frampton to the stage for a fresh rendition of Black.
The band’s Nashville stop on May 8 provided the ideal opportunity to link up with one of their earliest guitar heroes, with Frampton and Mike McCready trading licks as Eddie Vedder teased Frampton’s mega-hit, Do You Feel Like We Do.
“This gentleman was someone we looked up to before the Ramones,” Vedder told the crowd prior to Frampton’s arrival. “Some of our first guitar heroes, (like) Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend, he was right up there.
“It was one of (the) reasons why we loved live records, and later we decided to release bootlegs because of his influence,” he adds, alluding to Frampton’s celebrated live LP, Frampton Comes Alive!
“He’s such an incredible human being on top of it. It is our honor because at this point he’s become a good friend to the group. He’s recorded with Mike (McCready) and (drummer) Matt Cameron (the pair guested on Frampton’s 2006 album, Fingerprintscovering Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun) and we get to play with him tonight.”
The Les Paul-loving guitarist, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, is having to adapt his playing as he battles a degenerative disease, but he has said he will continue to play guitar for the rest of his life – and as this spot shows, he’s still got oodles of class.
Frampton takes the first solo, delivering soulful licks with a tender sprinkling of overdrive before McCready – wielding an all-white Stratocaster for the occasion – weaves the song’s motif around his improvised playing. And Frampton looks to be loving every second of it, with the Nashville crowd in full voice throughout.
The guitarist will embark on one final tour later this year, having made a surprise appearance at NAMM 2025. In March, he played a Beatles classic with Grace Bowers and Trey Anastasio and there were guitar solos galore.
“Every note I play now is so much more important because I know one of the notes will be the last I play,” he commented of his playing.
His diagnosis of inclusion body myositis (IBM) – a degenerative condition that affects the legs, arms, wrists, and fingers – has already forced him to perform seated, and prompted him to announce a farewell tour in 2019. But the pull of the stage is strong, and Frampton is proving defiant in the face of adversity.
It’s a quality Andy Timmons has been quick to acknowledge – “Even in the face of adversity he still plays with complete joy,” he has said – and, after penning a song in tribute to him, Frampton ended up guesting on it.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings