I wasn’t always ashamed of Frampton Comes Alive! I disowned it only in my mid–adolescent hipster years, after the following words, encountered in a magazine, dealt my innocence a cruel blow: “Frampton Comes Alive! is a fixture of record store bargain bins.” I hadn’t known that five–minute talk–box solos, exclamation–pointed album titles and cover art showing Frampton doing his best impersonation of Christ were not cool. Suddenly, Frampton Comes Alive! was dead to me.
A few years later, at the University of Chicago, I met a Geddy Lee lookalike named Lucas who unapologetically loved all forms of radio rock, Frampton included. Lucas and I became great friends, and his outsized zeal renewed my faith in the resurrected Frampton.
We both transferred this year. Penn has been good to me, but there are some woeful days; Lucas is out in Iowa, feeling lonely. Hardly a week passes without one of us texting the other, “Bob Mayo on the keyboards!” or “Do you feel like we do?” Because who else would understand?
