Foreigner / SunBet Arena at Time Square Casino / Menlyn, Pretoria
For what is unreservedly a heritage act tour, watching a band featuring none of the original members take the stage is a weird place to start. Founding member Mick Jones is still technically a member of the line-up, but at 77, he only plays when his health allows, and South Africa is a long way to travel from New York, where he’s been based for a number of decades, so he didn’t make this journey. First impressions, then, place brand over band. This is an outfit that has enjoyed considerable chart success and fantastic sales over a sustained period and – importantly – has a number of songs that have aged particularly well. So does it matter if the personnel playing the instruments have been replaced?
Well, yes. The style of the songs, the keys they were written in, the arrangements and the dynamics – this is what makes music (Foreigner’s or otherwise) stand out. And with phenomenal musicians like Jones and ex-vocalist Lou Gramm setting the original bar high, having a new crew that relied heavily on nostalgia value would very quickly establish a scale of diminishing returns.
Happily, the bulk of this band has been around – and together – for ages. Energetic, engaging rhythm guitarist Luis Maldonado only joined last year, but he has plenty of experience at the highest level, and the next newest member, drummer Chis Frazier, has been in Foreigner for a decade. He’s a massive asset, too – a wonderful tempo-keeper but also a technically gifted showman. He is responsible for the music geek highlight of the concert during an extended drum solo (how Eighties!) during which he begins a 32nd-note paradiddle and then lifts one arm in the air, somehow maintaining the same rapid rhythm with one hand. Keyboardist Michael Bluestein adds a huge amount to the sound with his banks of synths, and memorably struts out for a keytar solo at one point.
In the performance under review, guitarist Bruce Watson’s guitars were not coming through the system properly – a glitch somewhere in an otherwise good sound set-up – meaning that his lead breaks were largely nullified unless you were close to the stage and could hear them via his monitors. Bassist Jeff Pilson, temporarily confined to a bar stool by a dodgy knee (he plays in a large brace), still delivers in all his areas of expertise (he adds extra keyboards for some of the most recognisable hooks). And Kelly Hansen – think a more genteel Steven Tyler – is rock solid on all the big notes and in the light and shade of the quieter sections of the arrangements.
Most of the crowd appeared to know all the songs and all the lyrics, but for more general classic rock fans, Foreigner have more instantly recognisable tracks in this setlist than you might be able to recall at a Friday night pub quiz. Feels Like The First Time, Urgent, Cold As Ice, Hot Blooded, Waiting For A Girl Like You, Juke Box Hero and others are given big, bold life with hardly a gap (until planned breaks like the drum solo give the singers a break). And I Want To Know What Love Is – entirely unsurprisingly left until the encore – becomes a completely inclusive band/fan love-in, with pretty much every audience member singing and waving a lit-up cellphone around to create an expected but still exhilarating concert climax.
The brand, then, is hale and hearty, and built for success for many more years to come. And it’s great to see that as long as this line-up sticks around, that’s true for the band, too.