A Classic Classic Rock Fare-Thee-Well
Classic Rock Mainstay Foreigner, Still in Fighting Form, Steered Current Farewell Tour Through the Chumash Casino
For anyone writing, thinking, or talking about the current farewell Foreigner tour, which brought them to the Chumash Casino last Friday night, there will be a powerful temptation to use a certain quip. That said, it’s better to get this out of the way up front: “feels like the last time.”
But given their urgent and hot-blooded performance in Santa Ynez, this did not feel like the last time for a tired vehicle of a rock band. Instead, they are going out swinging and rocking, in vibrant form. Of course, “Feels like the First Time” was, in fact, the first major hit for this band born 47 years ago and now qualifying as one of the most classic cases of a classic rock foundation stone.
As the band seized the stage, kinetic and bold-toned singer Kelly Hansen — using his mic stand as a prop in old school rock frontman fashion — bellied up to the hit Foreigner songbook to issue a few of the big ones in rapid succession: “Double Vision,” “Head Games,” “Cold as Ice,” and “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” all without any apparent irony.
These songs, and many others in the band’s catalog, are embedded in the post-‘70s collective unconscious and they live on daily, in the time-warped domain of the “classic rock” radio format and film/TV soundtracks. Still, the songs come to life onstage, thanks to the polish and play-it-like-the-record perfectionism of the band. “By the way,” Hansen reminded the crowd, “everything you hear is being sung and played live here. We’re old school up here.”
The band’s lead singer since 2005, Hansen played the cliched role of the snarly, restlessly stage-roving rock frontman as laid out by founding singer Lou Gramm but had a sly wit and a warmth which started to emerge during his band introductions forward.
Hearing these songs in the sharp focus of a live show can invite a more analytical ear compared to the distractions of hearing the music as a sonic background. They dip into little touches of Queen-ly melodrama, as heard in “Blue Morning, Blue Day,” and also in “Feels like the First Time,” when the tune’s essentially celebrational spirit suddenly dips into a moody, minor mode bridge — suggesting soberly that this is very much not the first time. “Urgent,” always a personal favorite, has a nervous, clenching intensity and mechanistic eighth-note drive, more about sustained tension than release. Live, a cheesy synth solo played the surrogate for the signature bluesy tenor saxophone licks so important on the record.
Come encore time, the band moved into the concert’s most emotive moment, inviting a small choir to join them on the power ballad “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Don’t we all. Lest they end on an emo note, “Hot Blooded” capped it off with a hedonistic splash, making a fever of 103 seem like a desirable thing.
A question lingers around Foreigner’s reported end game: can this really be the end? Or are they “retiring” in the Frank Sinatra sense, with wiggle room when they get the show biz itch or a lucrative offer again? Time shall tell.
