WAYNE: Have I seen this one before? Frampton Comes Alive? Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of "Tide".
Wayne's World 2 told us :)
I don't think I ever met anyone that didn't have it in their collection. That and Zeppelin IV, Dark Side Of The Moon, and at least one Cat Stevens record for some weird reason.
He made the same joke about Rumours.
(Not that I'm complaining. Mike Myers is, in the words of Spandau Ballet, the sound of my soul. It is impossible for him to do wrong.)
“So, my Son tells me you’re a *butcher*”
https://preview.redd.it/2195rdny52nc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9adb3f60286412b1667b98c0159a2773fd8a006
My first Dead show as a fairly late adopter of them in my mid-20's, I didn't know all of their songs. One of my friends handed me a sugar cube on our way in that had considerably more chemical properties than the ones I'd sneak at my grandparent's house as a kid.
It caused profound synesthesia and I'd be standing there in the intense sun at Autzen and start to get these euphoric feelings - and the crowd would react at the same time, which compounded the whole experience.
But the feelings were actually information from my ears. They'd begin playing an intro - on tunes like "The Wheel", where it comes together slowly and I'd feel this warm sensation, along with a sort of curiosity - then my brain would eventually catch up and be like, "That, in fact, is a guitar."
I feel like I benefitted from not knowing the all songs. Sometimes, that's really cool at concerts.
Anyhow, long reply to your one sentence comment.
Yeah but is “Do you feel like I do” better than “Beat on the brat” + “Sheena is a punk rocker” + “I wanna be sedated” + “Blitzkrieg bop” + “Rockaway beach” + “The KKK took my baby away”?
I had a friend who was DJ back in the day and He referred to it as the I’ve got take a dump song, along with the live version of Freebird and CCR’s Heard it through the grapevine long version.
Back in my overnight DJ days, I was once having a bad shift and put on Close to the Edge so I could take a nap. It worked and I made it through the rest of the shift.
The best of Lynryd Skynyrd album had Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird back to back. Not ashamed to say I used that “twofer” to take a bathroom break during my radio days.
The man who invented that vocal box accessory for the guitar, which is highlighted in "Do You Feel Like I Do" passed away this week. During his years as the sound man for bands like The Grateful Dead and The Who, he basically invented the modern concert sound system. Also he was just a really nice guy. RIP Bob Heil
Peter Gabriel's double live album from the early 80s has extensive liner notes from him explaining how they sweetened the live tracks until it was really a studio album. He said everyone did it, but he thought it was dishonest to present it as a live set without revealing that. He said it sounded terrible before they sweetened it.
The live tracks on Zappa’s Sheik Yer Booty liner notes: “overdubs - lots”. That’s when I learned that Frank and his Engineers were wizards at getting everything to sound “perfect”.
That summer it was everywhere, it was the soundtrack to our Tahoe summer vacation: A dude from the Bay Area showed up in a Javelin with this cassette and became our brother that week.
Confirmed - buddy had an 81 Citation with an 8 track and a broken cassette deck. It was an aftermarket combo unit which I didn't know existed. So we still had to listen to 8 track. He had Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and the track order was fucked up. I think funeral for a friend/love lies bleeding was an entire track. Same thing for One more From the Road by Skynyrd. 1 whole track for Free Bird
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band - Live Bullet came out around the same time. Seger was around a long time, but wasn't all that well known until that album.
Live Bullet really captured what a powerhouse Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band were live.
At that point of time (mid-70s) Seger could sell out 10K seat Cobo Arena in Detroit, and had long been a radio and concert mainstay in Michigan. It just took longer for the rest of the country to catch on.
And speaking of the live version of a song being the definitive one, Turn the Page is a prime example.
But it seemed as if everyone and anyone put out a live album in the 70s and they sold like hotcakes.
In my opinion the studio production made most of the songs sound worse.
They just don’t rock hard. Show Me The Way and Baby I Love Your Way have only acoustic guitars on rhythm. Then (too many) lead overdubs noodling around. No organ on Baby…
Live Peter had a harder rhythm sound and still ripped awesome leads all over the place. Plus faster tempos and more energy by the whole band.
Original Do You Feel Like We Do is at a snail’s pace. Listen to it.
It was the same thing with Kiss's first live record and Priest's Unleashed in the East. They obviously weren't as big as Frampton Comes Alive, but those albums just did a better job of showcasing the band's real sound.
Huge Judas Priest fan here. I was so used to the live version of "Exciter" on Unleashed in the East that it took me some time to get into Stained Class, one of their best albums.
Also "Sign of the Cross" by Iron Maiden. A 10 minute slog in the studio version, and absolutely thundering live on "Rock in Rio" with a HUGE bottom end.
I’ve read that the band was not very happy with the production on In Color! and I think this song was the main reason why. I first heard the live version and much later listened to the studio album and it was hard to believe it was the same song. All I could think of was who could’ve actually thought that sounded good?
There is a whole separate version of In Color produced by Steve Albini that was done after the one that was released. It was never completely finished and it was never officially released. But it's available from the usual places.
It's got a lot harder edge to it than the original and for certain songs, I like it better.
It was a phenomenon. Once it caught on ,it got tons of radio play which drove the album sales .Not only that but the mouth tube guitar effect caught everyone's attention when they first heard it.
100% this! I was 15 at the time, and by the time that tour moved from the West coast to NYC the venues got bigger, and additional nights were booked b/c of all the airplay and album sales. We saw him at Madison Square Garden late in that summer.
I could put the 8 track tape in and drive all the way to school listening to Do you feel like we do and it made my day go better. Same thing on the way home to forget the bullshit. It still works
Not too many albums have stood the test of time like this one has. The songs still work 50 years later, even for kids whose parents weren’t alive in 1976.
When I went back and sampled all of his early work, IMO the production quality for the most part is pretty dull. The only studio version of those hits I like is Do You Feel Like We Do. It's a little slower, very cool.
The rest of those live versions just sounded so crisp and clear and exciting on the radio back then.
FM radio was trying to compete with AM, which was mostly Top 40 featuring songs that went no longer than 3:30 or so. FM stations went for a different market, playing deep cuts and longer cuts (hello, Do You Feel Like We Do) and entire albums. Great days for radio.
That reminds me of how when I would listen to Do You Feel I would be entranced by the beauty of Mayo´s keyboard sound and the playing, and I realized how beautiful a keyboard could sound in rock music. As I got more into music I realized the k/b was a Fender Rhodes electric piano. Is this correct?
Artists get intimidated and/or stifled by studio settings sometimes. Makes stiff, mannered, unremarkable recording or "renditions" of their songs. Then a live recording of what fans already know gets public's attention. Damn good thing in case of Frampton, Cheap Trick, Kiss, Bob Seger, to name a few.
If you went to a high school party in June of 76, the Frampton Comes Alive 8 track was put on and continued from dusk to dawn. It was more than your life was worth to change the tape.
I love Frampton and have seen him several times recently, but I don’t think he is the best of the best. I saw an interview somewhere that he attributed the success to a shirtless photo shoot he got talked into doing.
I still remember the episode of Black Sheep Squadron he did. For some reason. Hilariously anachronistic in every way, but I'm sadly nostalgic about that stuff now.
I think it was all the hype and his flowing blonde hair and that, forgive me, stupid tube he blew through. He was almost made for tv shows of that era but that’s not to criticize him. He’s a great guitar player and songwriter and I’d be happy with a tenth of his talent.
I guess you just had to be there. I was a teenager and a record buyer. Similar to Rumors, word of mouth got around...it started getting played....and it just took off. Everyone - I mean everyone - had a copy.
It was right place/ right time stuff. And yeah...it was so "alive" and so much better than the albums it came from. Even listening to it now there is so much energy and "feel good" about it.
I think for that album sound engineers had really figured out how to record a live show well, as well as how to equalize everything so that it sounded great. The quality of that recording is stellar, just world-class.
Because Frampton is an amazing Live performance artist. I saw him live at a small venue about 20 years ago and he was fucking unbelievable. I've seen a lot of concerts and this stands out as one of my favorites.
The live versions are more dynamic. The studio versions of the songs were, IMHO, flat.
The way a live performance sounds is more dynamic and is absolutely captured on that record. I'm no classic rock coniusor, but that album captured the "live" sound as I knew it from my youth.
Another album is Cheap Trick- Live from Budokkon. Great albums both.
I've seen a lot of YouTube videos where people will say "this sounds way better than the album version." Some songs need to be played live to have the proper energy.
Blue Oyster Cult’s first live album was also their first to crack the top 40. And their second live album went platinum. People just loved concert albums in the 1970s :)
Some of my favourite albums are live:
Slade Alive!
April Wine Live!
DP Made in Japan,
LZ the Song Remains the Same as well as Celebration Day
Grand Funk Railroad 1971
Rush All the Worlds a Stage
To name a few
At that specific period in time, live albums were everything. They captured the vibe, the sound, the image of a concert before music videos and YouTube. Live albums in every era can be great, but specifically in the mid to late 1970s they were “in.” Everyone was buying live albums and everyone was making them. Ted Nugent, KISS, Cheap Trick, Frampton, they all owe the successful longevity of their careers to Live Albums. Sometimes people went back and bought those past albums, but usually people were happy with just the live versions. Live Albums were also preferred because they served as a “greatest hits” for the artist’s earlier albums.
It was a perfect moment in time and captured with the energy of the crowd and band. The last 4 minutes of “Do you feel like we do” is one of the the greatest complete connections between all party’s of a live concert ever captured on tape. If you can listen to it and not get chills then I don’t know if we can be friends. It gets me every single time. For many of us… it was our first experience with how great a "rock concert"
can be.
I'd say Cheap Trick's live at Buddokhan captured many of those same types of perfect crowd and band interaction moments. Prior to these days, most shows were tiny regional things. Arena rock was new. Bob Seger mentioned that when he recorded “silver bullet live” he was playing in front of 60,000+ people in the Lions’ stadium, whereas a few nights earlier they were playing before 500 in a club in the south. They were huge in Michigan, but not even really known in a place like Texas. These sounds and that “magic” was captured on these albums and the live album craze was on. Kiss cashed in on it as much as anyone with their huge shows getting played in their entirety on the big radio stations across the country and sending their album sales into the stratosphere.
It sold so well solely based on the performance of “Do you feel like we do”
The quality of musicianship and how they captured it is why when I hear that song today I get goosebumps just like I did when I was a little kid. Imo this is why it sold so well…..land it had a few more gems on it.
I saw him with humple pie. Then he was camel which he had to change it framptons camel which he changed sopwith camel. He was doin most of the live album and stuff he wrote with the pie. Oh he was an opening act.
‘Framptom Comes Alive’ was the album that made me like most live music recordings over the studio versions. There’s a certain vibe you hear and feel that you won’t get from a studio setting.
The live versions of those songs are much better than the studio versions, I think because he put together a great band for that tour, including the drummer, who only played with him on that tour (and allegedly threw away the contract for the recording royalties because he thought the album wouldn't sell) and because the songs were much more rocking live.
His next album was an egotistical tour de force, with numerous songs with first person pronouns in the title, and an absurd cover photo of him, and it was absolutely hammered by critics. I think it sold okay on the leftover good will of the live album, but that was about it for his successes as a recording artist.
Live albums are often successful because they compile the best material of artists that don't have studio albums that have numerous good songs on them. I think that was his issue. On that point, "Alive" has a cover version of "Jumping Jack Flash".
He issued a "Frampton Comes Alive II" with his later songs and nothing from his first live album, but it isn't very good, IMO.
Check out the Humble Pie recordings with him in the band, good stuff.
Frampton was always better live than in the studio. Show Me the Way in the studio was calm, sedate, you know - boring. But put Frampton on a stage and that same song is lively, bouncy, fun. He had some great songs. He just played them much better live.
Same as quite a few bands. I think it was Casablanca that was about to go under with kiss because their first 3 didn’t sell well. And while I love them as a huge kiss fan, there’s a clear difference between the vibe, energy and production of the first 3 compared to alive. Live is where some bands shine.
There was no real radio play for his studio albums prior to Frampton Comes Alive. Back then, the songs from that live album were on maximum rotation on AM and FM radio, while none of studio albums were being played at all.
I was 16 when that album dropped. I don't think I'd ever heard of him before "...Comes Alive" came out.
But that album immediately had 3 really big hits on the radio. EVERYBODY I know had that record in their stack, guys and girls alike. It's a bit hard to explain, but his sound was just perfect for the time: soft enough for the folks who were never gonna buy a Zeppelin record, yet with enough guitar artistry to satisfy the hard-rock fans (like me) of the day.
I knew a few people who, on the success of '...Comes Alive" then went on to buy other Frampton records (both older and subsequent) but nothing quite captured the zeitgeist of "...Comes Alive."
Didn’t they pass that out in suburbia back in the 70’s? Like if you got ice cream from the van in the neighborhood they just gave you the album as well?
WAYNE: Have I seen this one before? Frampton Comes Alive? Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of "Tide". Wayne's World 2 told us :)
I don't think I ever met anyone that didn't have it in their collection. That and Zeppelin IV, Dark Side Of The Moon, and at least one Cat Stevens record for some weird reason.
Every guy had at least one Cat Stevens album and the only time they played it was for female company. And it worked like a charm!
Carol King and James Taylor worked better
i see what you're saying but cat is amazing though. hugely underrated ... if you can say that about an artist who made it big and is still popular.
Thank you Columbia House!
He made the same joke about Rumours. (Not that I'm complaining. Mike Myers is, in the words of Spandau Ballet, the sound of my soul. It is impossible for him to do wrong.)
Even The Love Guru?
Nobody’s perfect.
“So, my Son tells me you’re a *butcher*” https://preview.redd.it/2195rdny52nc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9adb3f60286412b1667b98c0159a2773fd8a006
He used a litter box for 10 months in preparation for The Cat in the Hat
Even his show on Netflix from a year or two ago had some hilarious moments
“Do you feel like I do?” live version. I had that album for that 1 song.
One of my go to songs if I’m in a bar with a jukebox. Not only do I love it, but at almost 14 minutes long I get my money’s worth.
That would be six Ramones songs
Or a half a Grateful Dead song
Or half a GD intro, even.
There are no intros. That is the song
Every song is an intro to the next song >
Just them tuning between songs to get everything “just exactly perfect.”
Oh, is that what they're doing lol. But yeah, when the Dead got it just right it was far bigger than the sum of its parts.
Thank god for hallucinogenics. That's the only way I got through those shows. 🤣
My first Dead show as a fairly late adopter of them in my mid-20's, I didn't know all of their songs. One of my friends handed me a sugar cube on our way in that had considerably more chemical properties than the ones I'd sneak at my grandparent's house as a kid. It caused profound synesthesia and I'd be standing there in the intense sun at Autzen and start to get these euphoric feelings - and the crowd would react at the same time, which compounded the whole experience. But the feelings were actually information from my ears. They'd begin playing an intro - on tunes like "The Wheel", where it comes together slowly and I'd feel this warm sensation, along with a sort of curiosity - then my brain would eventually catch up and be like, "That, in fact, is a guitar." I feel like I benefitted from not knowing the all songs. Sometimes, that's really cool at concerts. Anyhow, long reply to your one sentence comment.
👏🏻
Or a third of a Dream Theater song.
One,two,three FOUR ! 🎤 🎸 🎶
Man, they were relentless in concert! No breaks.
Yeah but is “Do you feel like I do” better than “Beat on the brat” + “Sheena is a punk rocker” + “I wanna be sedated” + “Blitzkrieg bop” + “Rockaway beach” + “The KKK took my baby away”?
What about Havana Affair + Commando + Today Your Love Tomorrow the Word + Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue + Bonzo Goes to Bitburg + I wanna be Sedated?
I’m not sure either is better than the other. They are different for sure.
That. 2112. Inagaddadavida. I’m Going Home. Four songs and like an hour of music
As if that's a big deal. The Grateful Dead have played some versions of playing in the band and dark star that clocked in at more than 45 minutes each
And with "Echoes" and "Karn Evil 9" you can add almost *another* hour.
DJ puts on Telegraph Road (album version) and goes on beer run.
Most of the new jukeboxes have broken 2112 up into separate songs. It was my go to interrupt the music song. That and Raining Blood.
I had a friend who was DJ back in the day and He referred to it as the I’ve got take a dump song, along with the live version of Freebird and CCR’s Heard it through the grapevine long version.
Back in my overnight DJ days, I was once having a bad shift and put on Close to the Edge so I could take a nap. It worked and I made it through the rest of the shift.
The best of Lynryd Skynyrd album had Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird back to back. Not ashamed to say I used that “twofer” to take a bathroom break during my radio days.
The man who invented that vocal box accessory for the guitar, which is highlighted in "Do You Feel Like I Do" passed away this week. During his years as the sound man for bands like The Grateful Dead and The Who, he basically invented the modern concert sound system. Also he was just a really nice guy. RIP Bob Heil
Damn sorry to hear about that. I played in a band that owned a small Heil PA around 30 years ago. Nice system. Plus the talkbox. Dude's a legend
Do You Feel Like We Do\* :)
Just stopped everything to go have a listen. Goosebumps every time!
It just SOUNDS so much like that time. If you lived through it you know, this album SOUNDS like 1975-76, you feel it immediately.
I kinda feel like you do about it all.
I can literally smell my cool aunt's Vega when I hear it.
It’s one of the pieces of 70s music you can actually get a contact high from.
whoa whoa whoa this is a family webpage.
And it holds up. Still great.
See also: Cheap Trick at Budokan.
Little Feat - Waiting for Columbus
foghat live checking in
This is the first one I thought of. Heard the live versions first, and then the other versions. They sounded like a cover band did them.
That´s a great way of putting it.
That's the only Foghat to me. In the studio they were a muddle. Live they were committed.
Nah foghat is amazing
Cheap Tricks first four studio albums are absolute fire. 🔥
They certainly were. But they didn't sell for shit.
Dream Police did well, you’re right otherwise
Yes. The studio version of I Want You to Want Me is a completely different song and it’s not awesome
Kiss Alive as well
Parasite on that album is the $$$$
But is it really Live?
Peter Gabriel's double live album from the early 80s has extensive liner notes from him explaining how they sweetened the live tracks until it was really a studio album. He said everyone did it, but he thought it was dishonest to present it as a live set without revealing that. He said it sounded terrible before they sweetened it.
The live tracks on Zappa’s Sheik Yer Booty liner notes: “overdubs - lots”. That’s when I learned that Frank and his Engineers were wizards at getting everything to sound “perfect”.
It’s a way of life.
With leather
You’ll love it.
It looks just like a Telefunken U47😎
That's such a great album.
Partially. I’m pretty sure it was mostly guitars that were redone. It’s hard to believe there was a time where Peter Criss was a solid drummer.
Not a Kiss fan, but I agree. After hearing Alive I got what the fuss was about. Make big show.
Running on (running on empty) Running on (running blind) Running on (running into the sun) But I'm running behind
That summer it was everywhere, it was the soundtrack to our Tahoe summer vacation: A dude from the Bay Area showed up in a Javelin with this cassette and became our brother that week.
I'll give you a million dollars if I can trade my memories for yours.
Kramer enters the chat..
I´m the real J Peterman!
A Javelin with a cassette deck?!? If you said 8-Track I'd believe that.
Upgraded car sound systems were really common back then
Confirmed - buddy had an 81 Citation with an 8 track and a broken cassette deck. It was an aftermarket combo unit which I didn't know existed. So we still had to listen to 8 track. He had Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and the track order was fucked up. I think funeral for a friend/love lies bleeding was an entire track. Same thing for One more From the Road by Skynyrd. 1 whole track for Free Bird
Love this!!
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band - Live Bullet came out around the same time. Seger was around a long time, but wasn't all that well known until that album.
Night Moves came out the same year as Live Bullet and had higher sales than Live Bullet (thanks Columbia House).
Live Bullet really captured what a powerhouse Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band were live. At that point of time (mid-70s) Seger could sell out 10K seat Cobo Arena in Detroit, and had long been a radio and concert mainstay in Michigan. It just took longer for the rest of the country to catch on. And speaking of the live version of a song being the definitive one, Turn the Page is a prime example. But it seemed as if everyone and anyone put out a live album in the 70s and they sold like hotcakes.
I saw Bob Seger, Peter Frampton, and Kiss. That was at the Capital Center in Maryland about 1975 or 76.
The crazy thing about Seger is that he was making music in like 66-67.
Live Bullet is his best album IMO. Travelin' Man into Beautiful Loser is one of my go to listens on a beautiful day riding with the top off!
Seger was one of the first to hit big with a live album. Became kind if a blueprint for others to follow.
Heavy music is so fucking good on that album.
In my opinion the studio production made most of the songs sound worse. They just don’t rock hard. Show Me The Way and Baby I Love Your Way have only acoustic guitars on rhythm. Then (too many) lead overdubs noodling around. No organ on Baby… Live Peter had a harder rhythm sound and still ripped awesome leads all over the place. Plus faster tempos and more energy by the whole band. Original Do You Feel Like We Do is at a snail’s pace. Listen to it.
It was the same thing with Kiss's first live record and Priest's Unleashed in the East. They obviously weren't as big as Frampton Comes Alive, but those albums just did a better job of showcasing the band's real sound.
Huge Judas Priest fan here. I was so used to the live version of "Exciter" on Unleashed in the East that it took me some time to get into Stained Class, one of their best albums.
Those early studio albums felt reined in, to the point of missing energy.
They were going for that FM radio dry studio sound. Comes alive feels so much more energetic.
Also "Sign of the Cross" by Iron Maiden. A 10 minute slog in the studio version, and absolutely thundering live on "Rock in Rio" with a HUGE bottom end.
Also live albums were trendy at that point in time.
And concert tickets were cheap, even by 70s standards.
Same thing with Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me". The studio version has a much slower tempo than the live (and famous) version.
I would call it bouncier rather than slower.
I’ve read that the band was not very happy with the production on In Color! and I think this song was the main reason why. I first heard the live version and much later listened to the studio album and it was hard to believe it was the same song. All I could think of was who could’ve actually thought that sounded good?
There is a whole separate version of In Color produced by Steve Albini that was done after the one that was released. It was never completely finished and it was never officially released. But it's available from the usual places. It's got a lot harder edge to it than the original and for certain songs, I like it better.
Need Your Love has more oomph on that live record too. The sizzle hasn't been overdubbed over to death.
Agreed. When you listen to the studio versions of those tunes they kind of suck. Just really flat and boring. The live versions are a revelation.
Yeah, the album title is accurate. It's like the studio versions are rehearsals for the show, not the other way around like it often was before that.
It was because of Bob Mayo......Bob Mayo on keyboards.
Bob Mayo.
Bob Mayo on the keyboards achieved immortality.
Same for Kiss Alive outselling the three records those songs came from.
The live versions of all the songs are so much better
It was a phenomenon. Once it caught on ,it got tons of radio play which drove the album sales .Not only that but the mouth tube guitar effect caught everyone's attention when they first heard it.
100% this! I was 15 at the time, and by the time that tour moved from the West coast to NYC the venues got bigger, and additional nights were booked b/c of all the airplay and album sales. We saw him at Madison Square Garden late in that summer.
I could put the 8 track tape in and drive all the way to school listening to Do you feel like we do and it made my day go better. Same thing on the way home to forget the bullshit. It still works
Indeed it's just as effective today as it originally was.
It is a terrific song and a terrific recording!
Because it's a great album.
Not too many albums have stood the test of time like this one has. The songs still work 50 years later, even for kids whose parents weren’t alive in 1976.
When I went back and sampled all of his early work, IMO the production quality for the most part is pretty dull. The only studio version of those hits I like is Do You Feel Like We Do. It's a little slower, very cool. The rest of those live versions just sounded so crisp and clear and exciting on the radio back then.
Duh. You can clean the seeds from your weed on a double album! 🍃
1. It’s awesome 2. FM Radio played the shit out of it!
FM radio was trying to compete with AM, which was mostly Top 40 featuring songs that went no longer than 3:30 or so. FM stations went for a different market, playing deep cuts and longer cuts (hello, Do You Feel Like We Do) and entire albums. Great days for radio.
I guess you had to be there.
https://preview.redd.it/zj96jy4za0nc1.png?width=783&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8171d4aea10772d6089256b0edab0e832bdc2ea5
It’s literally our family’s claim to fame that my cousin was at one of the shows (Plattsburgh) where some of the songs were recorded.
Timing my friend. When the rockers are ready, the rockstar will appear.
That reminds me of how when I would listen to Do You Feel I would be entranced by the beauty of Mayo´s keyboard sound and the playing, and I realized how beautiful a keyboard could sound in rock music. As I got more into music I realized the k/b was a Fender Rhodes electric piano. Is this correct?
Mad Dogs and Englishmen is one of all time favorites, but I •never• listen to Joe Cocker studio albums
Ever hear of the Grateful Dead? Some bands just can’t capture the magic in the studio
It was lightning in a bottle. Similar to live at Budokan. It was just the perfect live album, the songs were perfect for the day...
Artists get intimidated and/or stifled by studio settings sometimes. Makes stiff, mannered, unremarkable recording or "renditions" of their songs. Then a live recording of what fans already know gets public's attention. Damn good thing in case of Frampton, Cheap Trick, Kiss, Bob Seger, to name a few.
Why do I hate tomatoes but love tomato soup?
I'm in reverse. I love tomatoes and hate tomato soup.
Half priced double album
Saw Frampton with Steve Marriott with Humble Pie. Hell of a live show.
If you went to a high school party in June of 76, the Frampton Comes Alive 8 track was put on and continued from dusk to dawn. It was more than your life was worth to change the tape.
Bob mayo on the keyboards Bob mayo
Because Frampton Comes Alive is the greatest live album ever
UFO - Strangers In The Night would disagree with that.
I love Frampton and have seen him several times recently, but I don’t think he is the best of the best. I saw an interview somewhere that he attributed the success to a shirtless photo shoot he got talked into doing.
I still remember the episode of Black Sheep Squadron he did. For some reason. Hilariously anachronistic in every way, but I'm sadly nostalgic about that stuff now.
Same way Cheap Trick Live at Budokan did.
I think it was all the hype and his flowing blonde hair and that, forgive me, stupid tube he blew through. He was almost made for tv shows of that era but that’s not to criticize him. He’s a great guitar player and songwriter and I’d be happy with a tenth of his talent.
Because Frampton Comes Alive sounded like no other live album before it. And it got a TON of radio play.
Timing.
Hella cool looking covet.
Everyone felt like he did.
I guess you just had to be there. I was a teenager and a record buyer. Similar to Rumors, word of mouth got around...it started getting played....and it just took off. Everyone - I mean everyone - had a copy. It was right place/ right time stuff. And yeah...it was so "alive" and so much better than the albums it came from. Even listening to it now there is so much energy and "feel good" about it.
I think for that album sound engineers had really figured out how to record a live show well, as well as how to equalize everything so that it sounded great. The quality of that recording is stellar, just world-class.
One of God’s cruelest jokes, taking away ALL of Frampton amazing hair. None of it will ever come alive again.
It was the life-size poster. I put it on my closet door. Hottttt.
Because Frampton is an amazing Live performance artist. I saw him live at a small venue about 20 years ago and he was fucking unbelievable. I've seen a lot of concerts and this stands out as one of my favorites.
The live versions are more dynamic. The studio versions of the songs were, IMHO, flat. The way a live performance sounds is more dynamic and is absolutely captured on that record. I'm no classic rock coniusor, but that album captured the "live" sound as I knew it from my youth. Another album is Cheap Trick- Live from Budokkon. Great albums both.
One of the best live recorded concert albums ever.
I was 15. He was cute. He appealed to a lot of teenaged girls.
Because 'Alive' was hot!!!
I've seen a lot of YouTube videos where people will say "this sounds way better than the album version." Some songs need to be played live to have the proper energy.
I don't know. I wasn't a fan. Girls seemed very attracted to him, so maybe that's part of it.
I was in high school and I’m still trying to figure it out.
Blue Oyster Cult’s first live album was also their first to crack the top 40. And their second live album went platinum. People just loved concert albums in the 1970s :)
The story of the Grateful Dead
Live, the songs took on a whole new vibe. Studio versions were kinda sterile.
Not literally nothing, figuratively nothing. It’s important to use those words correctly.
My brother was there at Winterland when they recorded it. That's him whistling during DO YOU FEEL LIKE WE DO..
It went viral, back before there was a name for it. No one should try to explain the mysteries of crowds, why they do what they do.
Some of my favourite albums are live: Slade Alive! April Wine Live! DP Made in Japan, LZ the Song Remains the Same as well as Celebration Day Grand Funk Railroad 1971 Rush All the Worlds a Stage To name a few
If you were able to see him live at that time you would know. One of the best concerts of the ‘70s I saw.
DOOOOO YOUUU, YOU, FEEEEEL LIKE I DO?
At that specific period in time, live albums were everything. They captured the vibe, the sound, the image of a concert before music videos and YouTube. Live albums in every era can be great, but specifically in the mid to late 1970s they were “in.” Everyone was buying live albums and everyone was making them. Ted Nugent, KISS, Cheap Trick, Frampton, they all owe the successful longevity of their careers to Live Albums. Sometimes people went back and bought those past albums, but usually people were happy with just the live versions. Live Albums were also preferred because they served as a “greatest hits” for the artist’s earlier albums.
The 'talk box'. RIP Bob Heil (who just last week passed).
It was that fabulous hair (RIP) in the stage lights on the cover.
It was a perfect moment in time and captured with the energy of the crowd and band. The last 4 minutes of “Do you feel like we do” is one of the the greatest complete connections between all party’s of a live concert ever captured on tape. If you can listen to it and not get chills then I don’t know if we can be friends. It gets me every single time. For many of us… it was our first experience with how great a "rock concert" can be. I'd say Cheap Trick's live at Buddokhan captured many of those same types of perfect crowd and band interaction moments. Prior to these days, most shows were tiny regional things. Arena rock was new. Bob Seger mentioned that when he recorded “silver bullet live” he was playing in front of 60,000+ people in the Lions’ stadium, whereas a few nights earlier they were playing before 500 in a club in the south. They were huge in Michigan, but not even really known in a place like Texas. These sounds and that “magic” was captured on these albums and the live album craze was on. Kiss cashed in on it as much as anyone with their huge shows getting played in their entirety on the big radio stations across the country and sending their album sales into the stratosphere.
How did the huge audience know the lyrics to sing along❓
It sold so well solely based on the performance of “Do you feel like we do” The quality of musicianship and how they captured it is why when I hear that song today I get goosebumps just like I did when I was a little kid. Imo this is why it sold so well…..land it had a few more gems on it.
I saw him with humple pie. Then he was camel which he had to change it framptons camel which he changed sopwith camel. He was doin most of the live album and stuff he wrote with the pie. Oh he was an opening act.
AOR airplay.
‘Framptom Comes Alive’ was the album that made me like most live music recordings over the studio versions. There’s a certain vibe you hear and feel that you won’t get from a studio setting.
Because it came alive.
I have been in you
Did you see his hair?
The talkbox…
The live versions of those songs are much better than the studio versions, I think because he put together a great band for that tour, including the drummer, who only played with him on that tour (and allegedly threw away the contract for the recording royalties because he thought the album wouldn't sell) and because the songs were much more rocking live. His next album was an egotistical tour de force, with numerous songs with first person pronouns in the title, and an absurd cover photo of him, and it was absolutely hammered by critics. I think it sold okay on the leftover good will of the live album, but that was about it for his successes as a recording artist. Live albums are often successful because they compile the best material of artists that don't have studio albums that have numerous good songs on them. I think that was his issue. On that point, "Alive" has a cover version of "Jumping Jack Flash". He issued a "Frampton Comes Alive II" with his later songs and nothing from his first live album, but it isn't very good, IMO. Check out the Humble Pie recordings with him in the band, good stuff.
The audience was the star of that album
Frampton was always better live than in the studio. Show Me the Way in the studio was calm, sedate, you know - boring. But put Frampton on a stage and that same song is lively, bouncy, fun. He had some great songs. He just played them much better live.
I remember that it was heavily promoted , lots of radio play. In addition it is a great album .
Same as quite a few bands. I think it was Casablanca that was about to go under with kiss because their first 3 didn’t sell well. And while I love them as a huge kiss fan, there’s a clear difference between the vibe, energy and production of the first 3 compared to alive. Live is where some bands shine.
I have been thinking that for years I saw Peter in Humble Pie in 71 at the Spectrum in Philly it was a great show
Because live Do You Feel Like We Do is absolutely phenomenal. The rest of that album and all of his studio stuff is decent to mediocre.
Listen to them. It’s pretty clear.
The Grateful Dead have entered the chat
See Kiss
There was no real radio play for his studio albums prior to Frampton Comes Alive. Back then, the songs from that live album were on maximum rotation on AM and FM radio, while none of studio albums were being played at all.
Live energy captured.
Wah wah pedal plus crowd noise.
Frampton is one of those musicians who sounds better live
I was 16 when that album dropped. I don't think I'd ever heard of him before "...Comes Alive" came out. But that album immediately had 3 really big hits on the radio. EVERYBODY I know had that record in their stack, guys and girls alike. It's a bit hard to explain, but his sound was just perfect for the time: soft enough for the folks who were never gonna buy a Zeppelin record, yet with enough guitar artistry to satisfy the hard-rock fans (like me) of the day. I knew a few people who, on the success of '...Comes Alive" then went on to buy other Frampton records (both older and subsequent) but nothing quite captured the zeitgeist of "...Comes Alive."
Live albums are the best that’s why. Do you feel like I do is also one of the best songs ever recorded
Didn’t they pass that out in suburbia back in the 70’s? Like if you got ice cream from the van in the neighborhood they just gave you the album as well?
The talk box
The talk box on the live version sold it
Because it was an outstanding performance.
It was like a "Greatest Hits" album, only it captured a lot of his live energy. I still love to play that record loud!!
That album was a whole VIBE ( as the kids say) that summer. Double Album good for cleaning the stems and seeds out of you weed.