Humble Pie
Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore – The Complete Recordings
(A&M Records)
As it is often true in our digital age, Humble Pie is giving us an updated/extended/extra special package of their infamous live album from 1971. From their Rockin’ the Fillmore, surviving pieces of the pie, guitarist/vocalist Peter Frampton and drummer Jerry Shirley have co-produced the four-disc Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore – The Complete Recordings. We get basically the four shows the band played in March of 1971 (two per night) at one of NYC’s premier rock palaces.
Opener “Four Day Creep†takes a while to get going on Disc 1, with the fact that lead vocalist/guitarist Steve Marriott claims he bought a new guitar for this show. Humble Pie finally does get down to a super loud, fast blues that Frampton cuts through with his perfect fluid leading. Marriott gets into his old blues man style with Frampton playing off him on Willie Dixon’s “I’m Ready.†There’s a long opening vocal guitar/drums call and response, with really great drumming from Shirley. (On Disc 2 this extended opening is even tighter and Marriott sounds even clearer and on Disc 3; things are even heavier from Frampton it seems.)
“Hallelujah (I Love Her So),” played in all four sets and therefore it’s on all four discs, is a big fat fun commercial rockin’ blues featuring all vocalists of the band here: Frampton, Marriott and even bassist Greg Ridley.
Discs 2 and 4 (the second show on each day respectively) include the drawn-out, slow stomp of Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone†featuring as much bassist Ridley’s fat stomping, the amazing Shirley, Marriot wailing/talking to the audience and Frampton simply shot out of a cannon. (If you only know Peter Frampton from his infamous Comes Alive album, this record will certainly give you a good lesson of the man’s rock and roll prowess.) The third disc ends with big power chord-led “Stone Cold Fever†and not the band’s big hit, “I Don’t Need No Doctor,†as do the rest of the shows/discs.
If you’re hungry for Humble Pie, this four-disc set recreation of almost always the same set and a booklet by Tim Cohan of linear notes will certainly fill you up.
