Steve Miller Band with Peter Frampton: Titans' guitars come alive

REVIEW

What: Steve Miller Band with Peter Frampton
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre
When: Saturday
Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)

Steve Miller and Peter Frampton — two titans of the 1970s arena rock scene — hit rewind on Saturday with a pair of 90-minute sets full of hits and highlights from their combined 110-year careers.

Miller, 74, and Frampton, 67, leaned heavily on their guitars during their sold-out double-bill at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, the kickoff to a massive North American tour between the two friends, who first met in 1967.

Guitars were at the forefront for both sets, and the perfectly-mixed sound kept the notes alive in the back corners of the arena (kudos to the technical crew, who proved it doesn’t have to be loud to be good).

Overall, it was a quiet night. The crowd of 6,247 was vocal during Frampton’s set, joining the British rocker on singalongs during several of his big hits, but they sat for the duration.

Steve Miller Band fans were a little slower out of the gate, but the band’s material (more upbeat, better-known) had them out of their seats eventually — a clue to who was the bigger draw.

Miller, who recently moved to New York after years in Idaho and Seattle, has one of the biggest catalogues of hits from the ’70s, and the avalanche of well-known radio staples resonated with the audience. The Wisconsin native could have played three hours without running out of passable material — and the crowd would have embraced every note.

He’s the type of performer who can do enough musically to satisfy the gear-heads, but he’s also keen to please. Miller rarely navel-gazed, and when it was time for the hit parade, he delivered.

Frampton joined Miller onstage, and the two jammed on several blues standards, including Mercury Blues and gems from Otis Rush and Elmore James, one of a very few curveballs.

The results from Miller were a bit mixed early on, in terms of quality. Swingtown was nicely done, but Abracadabra and Serenade were weak vocally.

Frampton was the more outwardly expressive performer, especially on songs that weren’t mega-hits Show Me the Way and Baby, I Love Your Way. His largely instrumental (and Grammy Award-winning) version of Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun — the only vocals coming via Frampton’s talkbox take on the chorus — sounded exceptional, and he got gritty with Humble Pie’s Four Day Creep, a hit during his time with the legendary British blues-rock group.

It was Miller and his four-piece band, however, who provided the fuel injection after their slow start. An inexplicably long run of smashes marked the highlight of the night, the jet airliner with which one of classic rock’s most underrated guitarists and songwriters rode into the sunset on Saturday.

Kudos, Space Cowboy.

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