Foreigner
Capitol One Bank Theater
Westbury, NY
October 1, 2009
By Joe Lalaina
Set List: Double Vision/Head Games/Cold as Ice/Blue Morning,
Blue Day/Waiting for a Girl Like You/Can’t Slow Down/Dirty White
Boy/Say You Will/Starrider/Feels Like the First Time/Urgent/Juke
Box Hero/Long, Long Way From Home/I Want to Know What Love
Is/Hot Blooded
After more
than three decades of cranking out some the greatest
radio-friendly hits, like the Eveready battery Foreigner just
keeps on going. The only original member still in the band is
guitarist and cofounder Mick Jones. The rest of the band
consists of able, enthusiastic musicians who have breathed new
life into a well-known repertoire of songs that are truly
“classic” classic rock.
The band
opened with “Double Vision” and an extended version of “Head
Games” during this mostly hard-rocking two-hour performance.
During “Cold as Ice,” lead singer Kelly Hansen was anything but:
jumping off the stage mid-song, climbing over the seats, and
reaching out to grab the hands that assisted him from row to
row. He stopped to hug some fans before running back on stage to
finish the song. He told the crowd it was unfair that the female
fans could see the band members’ asses but the band couldn’t see
theirs, and demanded that some women get up and show them some.
A few actually turned around and showed their backsides! His
comments were in reference to the uniqueness of the venue
itself, a round theater which has fewer than 30 rows, providing
all seats with a direct view of the circular stage in the center
of the venue as it slowly rotates so that the audience can
clearly see each performer at all angles.
The band then
played “Blue Morning, Blue Day,” followed by a rearranged
version of “Waiting for a Girl Like You” before introducing
their newest single, the title track from Can’t Slow Down,
which went on sale exclusively at Wal-Mart the day before—the
only song they played from their first album in 15 years. The
tune rocked fast and hard, and again Hansen jumped back into the
crowd, dancing wildly. Upon returning to the stage, he asked,
“How many wild and crazy girls are in the house tonight? I know
you Long Island girls like to have fun! Well, we have some dirty
white boys here tonight!” This, of course, led into “Dirty White
Boy.”
An acoustic
rendition of “Say You Will” was next. This time, Jones took over
lead vocals, with vocal harmonies provided by Hansen,
saxophonist Tom Gimbel and bassist Jeff Pilson (formerly of
Dokken). Jones then sang “Starrider” from the band’s debut
album. At the end of the song Hansen asked the audience to give
a hand to the band’s leader and founding father, Mick Jones. The
crowd gave him a standing ovation. Jones, in turn, thanked the
audience for their loyalty through the years and, in particular,
thanked the fans from Germany and Japan who were in attendance.
Jones then introduced the rest of the band, paying special
tribute to Brian Tichy as “one of the world’s greatest
drummers,” and to Kelly Hansen (he joined the band in 2005 after
the departure of the band’s original lead singer Lou Gramm) for
“putting the life and soul back into these songs.” Even though
Hansen does not have quite the same vocal range as Gramm, his
phrasing and gutsy delivery succeeded in making each song his
own.
During “Feels
Like the First Time” the stage floor lit up with strobe lights
as Hansen encouraged the audience to stand and hold the person
next to them. The band segued into “Urgent,” during which Tichy
twirled his sticks and threw them at the floor tom so they hit
the drum in proper time and then bounced up in the air for him
to catch. Unfortunately, Gimbel was a bit screechy during the
saxophone solo (an integral part of the song, originally played
by the late R&B/soul legend Junior Walker). Regardless, the
audience gave the band a standing ovation.
Michael
Bluestein followed with a sleek synthesizer/keyboards solo,
which led into a clobbering, rock-the-house drum solo by Tichy,
who continued to twirl and hurl his sticks, never missing a
beat. He concluded the solo by pummeling the kit with the palms
and backs of his hands in the tradition of John Bonham and Tommy
Aldridge. He was like a man possessed, his drumming flawless and
frenetic. Foreigner then played an extended version of “Juke Box
Hero” and during the instrumental section broke into Led
Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” to the audience’s ecstatic
approval.
“Long, Long
Way From Home” was next, followed by the crowd-pleasing ballad
“I Want to Know What Love Is,” where the audience sang the
chorus. The show-closer, a rousing “Hot Blooded,” proved that
Foreigner is still hot-blooded after all these years. Check them
out and see.
