Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Alcatraz / Milan / Italy
Concert date: April 10, 2010
Attendance: 500
Ticket price: €32.00
Foreigner! Anybody remember them? It was a long time ago. Buried deep in the departed but nostalgic era of rock history in the eighties and the second half of the seventies, when they were smashing sales records. Especially on US soil! With over 50 million records sold around the globe, three quarters of that number in the US alone, this is a band that can truly brag about its career. Because the dream commercial success comes with a body of outstanding albums boasting a one-of-a-kind combination of classically built hard rock and a cunning dosing of more or less finely calibrated pop-art prosthetics, you end up with a distinctive AOR rock vocabulary that gave us a handful of instantly recognizable, poisonously sweet, ear-invading super-hit evergreens across the first six albums. Foreigner are one of those bands cut from exactly the right cloth, thriving in the realm of rock with their splendor of sonic and compositional perfection. And there’s no arguing with that.
On March 1, 2010, Foreigner released their comeback album “Can’t Slow Down” in Europe (!) via Ear Music Records. Even though Foreigner were created by two Brits and one American, Foreigner smell mostly American. The American, Lou Gramm, is no longer in the band. But in his place stands Kelly Hansen, who came to Foreigner from Hurricane. Close your eyes and listen, and he’s a dead ringer for Lou Gramm. Open them, cover your ears, and Kelly turns into a dead ringer for Steve Lee (Gotthard), just a bit slimmed down (you could also say “flattened sideways”). Of the original Foreigner, the boss Mick Jones is still in the lineup on guitar! The role of the band’s legendary co-founder from 1976, the Brit Ian McDonald, is now filled by Tommy Gimbel (guitar, flute, saxophone, backing vocals). Then there’s the explosive bassist Jeff Pilson, who spent years of his career in the melodic hard rock outfit Dokken, recorded three studio albums with Dio, and made it into the movie stars’ club when he lent his face to the band Steel Dragon in the film “Rock Star” (2001). In that movie, Jeff played Steel Dragon’s bassist Jorgen. Today’s Foreigner also feature a true drumming beast, Brian Tichy, who once burned off his excess male hormones in Billy Idol’s backing band. On keys is the younger Michael Bluestein, who got his seasoning as a member of the backing bands of Enrique Iglesias, Anastacia and Roger Hodgson (ex-Supetramp). So, the battle-hardened old tomcat Mick Jones once again thought of every detail that could shake the solid pedestal of Foreigner’s almost “spotless” presence.
On stage that day in Milan, at 10 p.m., we got a real surplus of charisma, know-how, experience and devilish faith in the magic of rock! It was a special night. One of those nights that stay in your heart forever. It was Foreigner’s first concert in Italy ever. After 34 years they finally lost their virginity in Italy too. You can hardly believe it could really be so. But the long absence from the scene left its mark. The Italians, who apparently never took all that much to the band, even when it was at the peak of its career, didn’t fix the bitter aftertaste this time either. The Alcatraz hall didn’t see more than 500 heads gather.
The lights dim in Alcatraz, which vaguely recalls Ljubljana’s Kino Šiška, except the floor isn’t tiered. The intro? Want double vision? You got it. Double Vision, that is. If you’re in Milan, at Alcatraz, at that hour, of course. Maybe just once in this life. So the hall gets hit with a full bag of Foreigner hits. And Foreigner immediately lived up to the high expectations. And what do you expect from Foreigner on stage? Sonic and performance perfection that comes close to flawless! And still you don’t believe it until you experience it.
The sound was superbly balanced all night, with every building block of the overall sonic picture clearly distinguishable. The performance was mistake-free, confirming that the band is built by people with enormous mileage and experience, real professional musicians who clearly know both the studio and the stage inside out. The hall first burst back with a wave of energy during Cold As Ice. Then Jones moves behind the keyboards and the first ballad confession follows, Waiting For A Girl Like You. Hansen, who by then had long since shed his sunglasses and the shine of his elegant white jacket, took all the attention here. Not just in this song but throughout the whole show, Kelly reigned supreme as a frontman in top form, walking with ease in Lou Gramm’s hard-to-fill shoes, working the crowd effortlessly with a lived-in, active performance and good-naturedly stoking up his “fellow sufferers” on stage. At one point Kelly asks the women in the audience if there are any naughty girls in the house. A few lost, lonely shouts go up. “Not enough,” Kelly replies. At the singer’s urging, the girls finally wake up, and Kelly reacts as expected: “We’re not worried that we won’t be able to handle you with a naughty white boy!” (the opening greeting into Dirty White Boy).
I’d like to single out the surprise of the night. The song Starrider, a reminder that the first Foreigner started their career as a progressive rock band. Mick Jones took over lead vocal duties, with Kelly shifting to backing vocals, then taking the mic back in the outro and carrying the bravura track from its dreamy, exploratory atmosphere, where we sailed on rich keyboard textures, through the rock detonation of the closing section, into one of the highlights of the evening. They stayed with the studio debut and followed Starrider with the rock-chiseled Feels Like First Time, which, with its fitting title, actually confirmed Foreigner’s first-ever show in Italy. The concert was moving into its most intense stretch. Only Bluestein and Tichy remain on stage. After bravura solo spots, in which Tichy stunned with his madness, beating the drums bare-handed like an animal in the style of Tommy Aldridge (ex-Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy). Tichy also has a very interesting drum setup. He uses just one rack tom, and next to it as many as three floor toms (what we’d casually call “kettles”). At the end, the two of them pour their solo escapades into a proper crossfire, until the rest of the band reappears on stage.
Mick Jones takes the initiative with a cosmic solo. What the hell do Foreigner have up their sleeve this time? The answer was obvious. A killer version of Urgent! Tommy Gimbel, who until then had been shyly playing the thankless role of an extra, apart from the flute intro of Starrider, now got his five minutes as a central stage figure and impressed everyone with an alto sax that injected the Foreigner classic with a much-needed dose of erotic charm! The goosebumps were there! Magic. And Foreigner sounded damn loud, hard and relentless. When they repeated the experience with Juke Box Hero and ramped it up even further with a witty improvised bit that they unexpectedly poured into the Led Zeppelin classic Whole Lotta Love, they drove the hall to sheer ecstasy. And said their first goodbye.
The band returns and gets through the expected evergreen ballad I Want To Know What Love Is, where Kelly Hansen almost “does it all by himself”. For the big finale, the band gets the hall on its feet with another “Double Vision” hit, Hot Blooded. The set list was dedicated to hits from the first five albums, to which Foreigner added Starrider, an experience worth every sin from the self-titled debut, and presented the new album “Can’t Slow Down” with the title track and the ballad single When It Comes To Love. Both songs fit into the classic Foreigner material more than excellently.
Italy has finally gotten its Foreigner. It greeted them with modest attendance, mind you. But this was one of those special, one-of-a-kind concerts, the kind you can say was taken straight from the “little box” and, in execution, rises above the line between excellent and perfect (beyond excellent). Personally, I probably won’t be satisfied for a long time. Not until I see someone like Journey on stage again, even though in legacy and name Foreigner still rank a notch below that band. Foreigner also confirmed that this is a sextet in excellent form. Even Mick Jones, who carries a hefty 65 years on his shoulders, shows not a trace of slowing down. In keeping with the title of their latest studio album. Foreigner aren’t calming down, then. They remain untamed stage stallions, defying time at their live shows with potent kinetics. They remain the godfathers of stage chemistry and tightness, guaranteeing a highly dynamic show where their studio-polished classics get just the right amount of juicy, atmospheric sonic upgrade. If anyone in the hall that night walked away indifferent after sharing energy with Foreigner, they need to see a doctor ASAP to have their prostate and adrenal glands checked! A concert experience the way the best of them deliver it, and one I recommend you all go through yourselves at least once in your life.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Double Vision 2. Head Games 3. Cold As Ice 4. Blue Morning, Blue Day 5. Waiting For A Girl Like You 6. When It Comes To Love 7. Dirty White Boy 8. Can’t Slow Down 9. Starrider 10. Feels Like The First Time 11. Urgent 12. Juke Box Hero —encore— 13. I Want To Know What Love Is 14. Hot Blooded
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