In 2019, Peter Frampton announced he was retiring from touring after being diagnosed with inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscular disease that affects his ability to play guitar. COVID forced him to cancel the European dates of his tour, which he didn’t think he was up to rescheduling. But in the new issue of CREEM magazine, he reveals what got him back for those final shows.
“I had resigned myself to the fact that, two years into the pandemic, maybe we shouldn’t even try and get a tour together,” he tells the mag, noting that even though he was holding a date at London’s Royal Albert Hall he was still unsure.
It took a visit to an ENT to change his mind. When he expressed his ambivalence about performing again due to his condition, Frampton shares, “He said, ‘Do it. The people want to see you.’ Then he said, and it was important the way he put it, ‘They’ll understand.’”
He notes, “It took a stranger to make my mind up. Isn’t that wild?”
Another thing that got him excited about playing again was recording a guest appearance on Dion’s most recent album, Stomping Ground, which got him out of his “doldrums” and smiling again.
Frampton describes that Royal Albert Hall show as magical with an amazing audience. “They were super supportive in every possible way. It was a wonderful feeling,” he says.
And it may have been enough to keep Frampton from totally saying goodbye to performing. “The audiences really helped me see a way forward,” he says. “They were wonderful everywhere. I really can’t thank them—and Dion and my ENT, don’t forget—enough.”
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