Unfortunately, I do. It’s especially painful when you consider that the combined cover versions of those songs did better on the charts than the originals.
I saw him playing at the casino a couple years ago to a packed audience of old gray baby boomers. Excellent excellent show, they sounded great. The opening of ‘Do You Feel’ took me right back. Same effect as in the 70’s, those beautiful notes descending through the air like gold sparkles. Loved him then, and still do. There’s no answer to ‘why’. If it’s good music years ago, it’s good music still.
Incidentally, they are re-issuing Humble Pie’s “Performance: Rockin’ The Fillmore” in October. The 4-CD set will have both night’s shows from their 1971 stand at the Fillmore East…without the swear words censored out…finally!
I read somewhere, and I have no cite, that after the success of Frampton Comes Alive, Peter realized he would never have to work again. Everything after that was for enjoyment and not money.
I also believe I read the same thing about the success of Steve Miller’s greatest hits album: he would no longer have to work for a living.
The Beatles probably realized that in about 1966 but continued to be prolific for another 5 years.
5 years? Heck, McCartney hasn’t really stopped yet.
Only for people who didn’t have Sgt Pepper or The White Album. I guess it’s a sign of my advancing age that I didn’t remember the seed & stem sorting appeal of Frampton Live!
You gonna eat that last slice of pizza? 
Perfect storm. It was a great album. The shows that led up to it were great shows. All my friends had copies of Humblepie’s Rockin’ the Fillmore, and everyone wanted to see PF do well, but frankly, his solo studio albums were as dry as could be. He still had a loyal following of serious collectors, who liked the music, but really: those albums sounded so “studio” they’d chill you right out, despite having a fair number of tasty tunes (including covers) and good session work. When FCA came out, everyone loved it.
And they loved PF long before the album came out. I remember an all-afternoon 4-band concert at Bowen Field (EMU in Ypsilanti) in August of 1975 with Yes, Dave Mason, Frampton, and Ace (a 2-hit wonder with “How Long Has This Been Going On” and another hit I don’t remember now.) This was well before FCA came out in 76, but he was playing the material that would later put him on the map. A year later, he would have been billed ahead of Yes (or more seriously, they’d never share a bill).
Ace was a great club band but not really a concert band. Frampton blew everyone away. He did play “Do You Feel” as his last song of a fairly short set (45 minutes?) and the crowd dug it. Sure, the talk box was a nifty gadget, but he really used it well, really interacted with the crowd, and they ate it up. Poor Dave Mason had a very hard act to follow. He played a good set, but it was a bit of a coffee break after Frampton’s. Yes sounded like Yes, despite Patrick Moraz replacing Wakeman, and with a stadium full of Yes fans, they loved it.
FCA was a set of excellent recordings of some great performances. While it may sound dated today, at the time it didn’t sound like all the other album-oriented rock. Furthermore, live recording had come a long way from Chicago IV; they could now get studio quality results from live recordings, without losing the “life” that was clearly missing from Frampton’s studio solo releases. (Admittedly, the ability to make great live recordings predated this by a few years, but Frampton benefitted from it more than any other artist I can think of.)
And yeah, he was cute, he was already fairly famous, and they marketed the hell out of it. It was an instant success on the radio and with fans. I never owned a copy, but I always enjoyed hearing it.
PS: I agree that Abba was underrated by many, and that their songwriting skills were admirable.
Ahem. July 18, 1976. And Yes was still headlining. Or at least co-headlining–anyway, Yes played last.
Ignorance fought!
My guess is the gig had been booked quite a bit earlier. It’s funny how “super fame” can rocket up and then fade back fast. I remember when the movie Tommy came out. Elton John had been a big star for a long time by then, but something (not sure what – maybe Yellow Brick Road?) had just rocketed him to where he was on the cover of every magazine. I was amused to see several local theater maquees read:
ELTON JOHN
in
TOMMY
Gee, no mention of The Who, or Roger Daltrey? Oh yeah, Daltrey’s moment of superfame started just after (thanks to?) that movie. Or something like that. My memories of this era aren’t crystal clear. 
Not like any of these guys faded back into obscurity.
Owen Frampton used to be a teacher at the school down the road here. If you don’t know the story it’s worth a google - Owen, Peter and some kid called David Jones.
By the way, I don’t believe this thread has mentioned that the infamous guitar on the cover, a 50’s 3-pickup black Les Paul Custom, was lost for decades, and recovered a few years ago -
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/07/144799712/framptons-dream-guitar-recovered-decades-later
Enjoy
And here’s a video of the restored Black Beauty’s coming out party in Boston last year:
I would really like to know more of that story. It seems the plane crash wasn’t a total loss, so the insurance company did what? How did the guitar not get returned? What about the rest of the stage equipment?
So many questions.