Foreigner / Europe / FM

FM are the opening band on the current Foreigner UK tour, they had just 30 minutes to get the crowd on their side, and they did this with ease. It was good to see a nearly full venue for FM, as it proves that they can still pull a crowd, even with just a six song set. FM kicked off with “Tough Love” followed by “I Belong to the Night”, then the classic “That Girl”, a great version of “Closer To Heaven” which was performed with all the passion that I’ve come to expect from this band. “Crosstown Train” and “Burning my heart down” completed the set, FM just ooze quality from every pore.

Europe are next up to show us what they are made off, and if their headlining Bag Of Bones tour from Nov/Dec 2012 was anything to go by, it would be great.
In Joey Tempest, Europe have a front man who has hardly aged, running around the stage and throwing his Mic stand around like it was a toy, It’s great to hear he’s also still got an amazing voice. While singing ‘Carrie’, his voice sounded fantastic without the rest of the band, they had stopped playing to let the audience sing the chorus with him.

We got a good mix of old and new songs tonight, with ‘Cherokee’ being a nice surprise, as they very rarely play this live. ‘Rock the Night’ did just what it says on the tin, the band were on fire, they did a great version of “Superstitious”, which saw Joey and company almost runaway with the show, but I doubted, not even “The Final Countdown” could take away any of Foreigners thunder. And we didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Soon it was time for Foreigner to shine, having seen them knock Journey for six when they supported them on their uk tour arena tour back in June 2011, I knew this smaller, more intimate gig would be far, far better.
Kelly Hansen lead the stage invasion, and opened up with “Double Vision” which then crashed into “Head Games”, I thought I had double vision at one point with everybody running around the stage, I had failed to spot that Mick Jones ( Mr Foreigner ) was nowhere to be seen.
I knew he had emergency root canal dentistry only the day before, and while I was pondering that thought, Kelly Hansen jumped off the stage right in front of me and ran through the crowd during ‘Cold as Ice’, what a way to start.
Everything slowed right down for the next track, “Waiting for a girl like you”, Kelly sang this beautifully with the crowd savoring every note, and then the magic happened, Kelly introduced Foreigner’s founding member, Mr Mick Jones.
If you thought the band sounded great before, the moment Mick strummed the first chords to “Feels Like the First Time” all hell broke loose. There is no mistaking Mick’s guitar tone; it added that vital ingredient that had been missing from the first four songs.

From here they went straight into “That Was Yesterday” closely followed with ‘Dirty White Boy’ which had all a lot of ass shaking from Kelly, the lady’s in the audience enjoyed it, as Kelly lapped up the applause and wolf whistles. Mick then slowed the pace down a little with a track from the very first album, ‘Star Rider’.
What happened next, for me was the highlight of the entire evening, Thom Gimbel the exceptionally talented musician walked on stage with a saxophone and began to play ‘Urgent’. The song sounded great, it kicked ass, however the Thom Gimbel saxophone solo was simply stunning, never have nearly 3000 people been rocked like this by a saxophone, when he had finished Thom got a standing ovation, he deserved it.
An inventive Michael Bluestein’s keyboard solo, later joined by drummer Chris Frazier, while good, just about held the crowd until the opening bars to an extended version of “Juke Box Hero” rocked the venue.
The first encore song was ‘Long, Long Way from Home’ and everybody was in party mode by this time The band were really enjoying themselves, the crowd were loving it, dancing in the aisles, but it was coming to an end all too soon.
Foreigner decided to go out in style, asking the crowd to take hold of the person next to them, come down to the front of the stage and to join in with them singing the epic ballad ‘I Wanna Know what Love Is’, it was just like in the video, however the crowd were the choir tonight.
“Hot Blooded” was the final song of the night, a tight quick hard rocking song, a perfect closer.
FM were good, Europe were great, however Foreigner showed them how to do it, seriously impressive.

Setlist:

Double Vision
Head Games
Cold as Ice
Waiting for a Girl Like You
Feels Like the First Time
That Was Yesterday
Dirty White Boy.
Starrider
Urgent
Keyboard solo / Drum solo
Juke Box Hero
Encore:
Long, Long Way from Home
I Want to Know What Love Is
Hot Blooded