On Friday, Peter Frampton revealed his plans for a 2019 farewell tour, dubbed Peter Frampton Finale. The tour, presented by SiriusXM, will feature support from Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening as well as from Frampton’s son, Julian, and the Julian Frampton Band. The tour will kick off at Tulsa, OK’s Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on June 18th and extend through the summer and fall before wrapping up on October 12th at San Francisco, CA’s Concord Pavilion.
While “farewell” tours have been annoyingly common in recent years, and usually not to be taken seriously, Frampton revealed in an interview with CBS This Morning the reasoning behind the final tour. Frampton has been diagnosed with inclusion body myositis, an incurable inflammatory condition that slowly degenerates the muscles. As a result of the sad news, Frampton has been recording as much music as possible before the disease catches up to him.
“Between October and two days ago, we’ve done like 33 new tracks,” he said in the interview. “I just want to record as much as I can, you know, now, for obvious reasons.”
“Going upstairs and downstairs is the hardest thing for me,” he continued. “I’m going to have to get a cane … and then the other thing I noticed, I can’t put things up over my head.”
Frampton was diagnosed with the disease after a fall on stage about three and a half years ago, but started feeling the effects this past fall.
“What will happen, unfortunately, is that it affects the finger flexors,” he said. “That’s the first telltale sign is the flexors, you know. So for a guitar player, it’s not very good.”
While the symptoms have intensified, they thankfully haven’t fully affected his guitar playing.
“But in a year’s time, maybe not so good … I’m a perfectionist and I do not want to go out there and feel like, ‘Oh I can’t, this isn’t good.’ That would be a nightmare for me,” he said. “I’ve been playing guitar for 60 years. Started when I was eight and now I’m 68. So, I’ve had a very good run.”
Frampton is defining the situation as “life-changing”, not “life-threatening”, and assures fans the integrity behind this tour is positive.
“The reason I’m calling it the ‘farewell tour,’ again, is because I know that I will be at the top of my game for this tour and I will make it through this and people won’t be saying, ‘Oh you know, he can’t play as good.’ I can. But we just don’t know for how long.”
He continues with hope, “If this is the farewell tour, then maybe if the drug trial works, there’ll be the miracle tour … I wish but I’m realistic, too, so that’s why we’re really – this really is the farewell tour.”
Watch the entire interview below:
[Video: CBS This Morning]