Head Strong: Fantasy concerts preserving time we knew

With Labor Day weekend comes the end of the summer concert season. Appropriately, the final show I caught this year took me back to the first music I ever purchased, long before the age of iPods.

Frampton Comes Alive! was the first album I ever bought, more than 30 years ago. Back then there were still plenty of record stores in Center City. My buy was made at the old Sam Goody's at 12th and Chestnut. Within a few weeks that summer, I saw the former Humble Pie guitarist along with 100,000 others in one of the legendary outdoor concerts at JFK Stadium. I remember that the ads for the show said it would start at High Noon. That was a case of truth in advertising.

I've been seeing Frampton in concert ever since, including last month at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside.

Many things have changed since that first show. We've both lost lots of hair. There is no longer a need to sleep in my Mustang to score great seats. And this time my date was my 11-year-old son instead of a junior high school girlfriend. But Frampton remains a gifted guitar player and engaging entertainer.

I only wish the set list were the same. While I was thrilled to hear the first few chords of "Lines on My Face," I took note that he played it second on the set list, instead of second to last as he did on the vinyl version. I call that a missed marketing opportunity.

For many years, I have wondered why bands with classic albums don't tour in support of those recordings, regardless of their age. No improv or between-song preaching. No unplugged sets or new songs. Just the albums and arrangements in sequence, as we grew up hearing them. Which is why earlier this summer, I was thrilled to see a newspaper ad for a series of concerts at the Beacon Theatre in New York featuring Steely Dan. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had special plans for the Big Apple.

The opening-night set list, the ad announced, would feature the Aja album in its entirety. Becker and Fagen would tackle Gaucho the following night and The Royal Scam after that. Indeed, the duo spent much of the summer on the road working their way through those records to rave reviews. Steely Dan's stand in New York got me thinking about the albums I'd want to see performed in their entirety, besides Frampton Comes Alive!

My dream list, for artists still alive, which will certainly peg me as a middle-aged white guy, looks something like this:

Elton John, Madman Across the Water. Not only does Madman open with one of John's most popular songs ("Tiny Dancer"), it's also a record with a running theme: the adventures of a young Elton John in America. Madman across the water, indeed, and truly a show that both veterans of Sir Elton's shows and casual, hit-seeking fans could get into.

Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic. News that Steven Tyler had fallen off the stage and broken his shoulder was especially disappointing because the band was planning to take Toys in the Attic to the road this summer. Aerosmith's set lists have always gotten a heavy sampling of the album ("Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" are on it), but the rest of the record is worthy as well.

AC/DC, Back in Black. You won't find the most successful rock band in America on iTunes. AC/DC doesn't sell individual songs online because it doesn't want to break up its albums - an approach they should bring to a round of live shows as well. The consistency of AC/DC albums - a New York Times reporter once wrote that the band's lyrics "often contain what might be called single entendres" - would seem to lend itself perfectly to a live treatment.

Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman. The seminal work for the man now known as Yusuf Islam is as relevant today as it was when it was released in 1970. That's because for all the simplicity of the music and lyrics, Stevens' songs always achieved a kind of universality that listeners of all stripes could relate to. Tea is full of characters that set out looking for something. Why not let them all share the stage in the way Stevens originally introduced them?

Hall & Oates, Abandoned Luncheonette. A plug for a hometown favorite. Abandoned Luncheonette features the best music Hall & Oates created, and it runs the cycle in my collection, meaning I've bought it in its album, 8-track, cassette, and CD incarnations.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle. Last year, the Boss played the more famous Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town in their entirety in one show - a charity gig that fetched $1,000 a ticket and was attended by Gov. Corzine (The gov sat in the first row and didn't escape the jeers of some concertgoers.) The band is planning to run through Born to Run again at a couple of shows this fall. But The Wild is in many ways the quintessential E Street album. Songs like "Incident on 57th Street" and "Rosalita" are gritty and nostalgic in a way that fans from this area can appreciate in a special way.

Jethro Tull, Aqualung. Ian Anderson's voice isn't what it used to be, but what's left of Jethro Tull recorded Aqualung live in its entirety a few years ago for XM Radio. They nailed it. "Locomotive Breath" is vintage Tull, "Mother Goose" is another classic, and the rest of the album is a perfect photograph of a time many of us grew up in.

Which is why when Anderson comes to the Keswick in the fall to do an acoustic set of Jethro Tull, I will be there to see it.