Peter Frampton Detailed What May Have Been His Final Tour

It’s a hard time to be a touring musician right now unless you’re one of the world’s biggest names. And for musicians with concerns about their health, the complexities of touring (and the risks associated with it) are even more numerous. Neil Young made that very clear when he announced he wasn’t rushing to go back on tour last year. Even under the best of circumstances, touring can take a lot out of a musician — as the late David Crosby once explained.

In a recent profile for CREEM, Peter Frampton discussed a recently-concluded tour, which he said could be his final time on the road. In conversation with Jeff Slate, Frampton explained the precautions he and his band took as they made their way through Europe in the Fall of 2022.

As the article makes clear, Frampton has a chronic medical condition called Inclusion Body Myositis, which will eventually adversely affect his ability to play the guitar. This diagnosis left him eager to play live while he still could — something the pandemic made especially difficult.

“I had to write an email to all my friends saying, ‘No backstage. No meet and greet. We’ve got to get through these eight shows,’” Frampton explained to CREEM. “If we lose one person on the crew or one person on the band, we’re sunk. So we cannot take any chances whatsoever.”

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The band’s tour came to an end at the Royal Albert Hall, which Frampton noted was very intentional. “[M]y main idea for this tour was to go home to dear old England and say goodbye, in a way, in a place that was worthy of a last show,” He’s cagey about whether this will actually have been his last show or not — though he did tell CREEM that he has a new album in the works.

Still, it’s a sobering reminder of what some musicians are still dealing with on the road — and what may well be a permanent concern going forward.