Last Saturday night at Luhrs, a sold out crowd was treated to a show, featuring some of the most famous and enduring rock songs. For being world-renowned rock stars, Foreigner did not keep the people waiting very long. The band got started a little after 8 p.m., with “Double Vision,” which was also their opening number the first time I saw them in 2007.
By the next song, “Head Games,” women were already trickling to the edge of the stage to dance for the lead singer, Kelly Hansen, who has been in place since the band’s comeback in 2002. “Now enough with all the respectful talk. Are you guys ready to rock tonight?” With that, we were off.
Hansen’s voice sounds eerily like that of the original recording vocalist of Foreigner’s most famous songs, Lou Gramm, but certainly there are no complaints here. Hansen was a real party starter, virtually crawling out into the audience and walking across seats as he hit some of those wailing notes, his voice never faltering. Everyone shot to their feet.
A break in the music came and, in typical Valentine’s Day fashion, a member of the audience proposed to his girlfriend with the help of the band, just before they performed “Waiting for a Girl like You.” (She said yes, by the way.)
Now, it is worth it to point out that noticeably absent from the stage Saturday night was founding member Mick Jones. He was hot and heavy on his guitar for the Yahoo Screen Live performance on Thursday night, so I am sure the audience would have loved to see him up there, but I digress.
Naturally, the band needed to find out how many “naughty girls” were in the audience that night, before busting into the hit “Dirty White Boy,” which always brings the house down, down enough for bass player Jeff Pilson to start his arrangement of a new raw acoustic guitar version of “Say You Will,” accompanied only by tambourines, flute and some drumsticks. The fact that it was Valentine’s Day, I am sure, made this a much heavier piece for not only myself, but the band, which also claimed it to be a very special night.
Not long after “Feels Like the First Time,” “Urgent” began. The fedora went on and the sax came out for Foreigner’s renaissance man, Thom Gimbel. I had the pleasure of talking to Gimbel on the phone, earlier in the week. It was in this conversation that he let me know that the “sax is the most fun you can have standing up” and the audience was not let down, in that respect. Gimbel has been with the band for 20 years and was, by all rock star standards, the coolest guy on the stage. He now takes care of playing rhythm guitar, saxophone, flute and some keyboard.
The band needed a break, so the keyboardist Michael Bluestein went into some EDM/alien-like music, followed by an intense drum solo by Chris Frazier, who dumped water on his drums. When the strobe lights started up . . . you just had to be there.
“Juke Box Hero” brought everyone back and “ended” the show. That is a song that should be on everyone’s “See It Live” bucket list.
“Long, Long Way from Home” was the first encore song, but it was “I Wanna Know What Love Is” that showed off Foreigner’s ballad chops. Two choruses from local Shippensburg schools joined the band on stage, after selling albums in the lobby to fundraise for the Grammy Foundation.
Our night ended, too soon, with fan-favorite “Hot Blooded” before Kelly Hansen sent us all out into the bitter cold.
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