Date: Sunday, August 12, 2018
City: Springfield, IL
Venue: Illinois State Fair
Opening act(s): Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
Headlining act: Foreigner
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts Setlist:
Victim Of Circumstance
Cherry Bomb
Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)
Bad Reputation
Soulmates To Strangers
You Drive Me Wild
Light Of Day
Fake Friends
TMI
Love Is Pain
Fragile
Fresh Start
Love Is All Around
I Love Rock ‘N Roll
Crimson & Clover
I Hate Myself For Loving You
Real Wild Child (Wild One)
Everyday People
Foreigner Setlist:
Long, Long Way From Home
Double Vision
Head Games
Cold As Ice
Waiting For A Girl Like You
Dirty White Boy
Feels Like The First Time
Urgent
Keyboard/Drum Solo
Juke Box Hero
———————
I Want To Know What Love Is
Hot Blooded
Notes:
- Third time seeing Foreigner live; first time as a headliner.
- Mick Jones, the only original member of Foreigner still in the band, was absent at this show for unknown but likely health related reasons.
- First time seeing “Long, Long Way From Home” and “Waiting For A Girl Like You” live.
- Show #7 at this venue; first since August 17, 2016.
Videos:
Review:
Apparently my pattern of seeing a concert at the fair every five years has changed to seeing one every two years. Having seen Boston in 2014 and KISS in 2016, 2018 provided the chance to see Foreigner (whom I’ve seen open for Def Leppard twice) with special guests Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.
After stuffing my face with a corn dog, vinegar fries, a BBQ brisket sandwich, Dole whip, and several lemonade shakeups, I took my seat inside the Illinois State Fair grandstand. Despite the fact that this was the second concert venue I ever visited, I’ve only seen six shows here. Many bands have come through that I would have seen out of curiosity, if not sheer convenience, had I been older and/or in a better place financially.
Thankfully in 2018, I’m old enough and financially sound enough to catch a show at the fair if I’m not busy. As I sat there looking around, I couldn’t help but think back to my first two visits in 1999 and 2000, both of which were to see Def Leppard. Tickets cost roughly $20 each time. In 2018, I’m less than two weeks away from seeing Leppard play Busch Stadium in St. Louis… And tickets are slightly more than $20 each.
But very few shows, even at the fair, cost $20 these days. A lot has changed in the near 20 years since I first saw Def Leppard play this venue. In that time, their popularity has exploded (again) and they have returned to the large arenas, amphitheaters, and now stadiums that they belong in.
Foreigner, on the other hand, belong at the Illinois State Fair.
But first was Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, a band that I have somehow yet to cross paths with. They were certainly on my ‘bucket list,’ I just never had a chance to see them. They’ve opened for Def Leppard (but not at shows I’ve seen) and played shows in the area but usually they didn’t sync up with my schedule/money/interest, depending on who they were playing with.
With that being the case, I was happy to finally have the chance to catch them live. They hit the stage right at 8:00 as dusk was setting in and it was a great night for a concert. It was warm and slightly humid, but not unbearably hot as we’ve frequently experienced here at this time of year. And it wasn’t storming, a frequent feature of the 10 days of the fair. Severe storms during my 2010 visit for a Blondie/Cheap Trick concert resulted in Blondie being cut short and Cheap Trick being canceled entirely. I got a refund, so I guess I got 90% of a Blondie concert for free.
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts are a bit of an enigma to me. Joan herself is a rock legend in her own right and she has a slew of hits. But several of her biggest hits are covers and she doesn’t seem to have one ‘mega album’ to which all of her other work is compared. I simultaneously question and agree with her place in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
Her set opened with “Victim Of Circumstance,” and swiftly segued into “Cherry Bomb,” perhaps the best known song from Jett’s first band The Runaways (which famously also featured Lita Ford and Micki Steele, among others). It was technically the first of many covers to be featured throughout the evening, and the band sounded great despite the notoriously horrible sounding venue.
Yet another cover followed as the crowd participation increased for Gary Glitter’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah).” Jett’s own “Bad Reputation” kept things going before she played “Soulmates To Strangers,” a track from her most recent studio album, 2013’s Unvarnished.
She returned to covers, first doing The Runaways’ “You Drive Me Wild” before playing the Bruce Springsteen-penned “Light Of Day,” from the film of the same name.
A stretch of originals followed, as Jett alternated between classics (“Fake Friends,” “Love Is Pain”) and more recent fare (“TMI,” “Fragile”). An unexpected highlight was “Fresh Start,” a new song written for an upcoming documentary on the band titled Bad Reputation.
All but one of the final six songs were covers. The first was “Love Is All Around,” which passed with little reaction. On the flip side was Jett’s most well-known song, her cover of The Arrows’ “I Love Rock ‘N Roll,” which got the biggest reaction of the night.
“Crimson & Clover” followed before Jett’s final original song, the anthem “I Hate Myself For Loving You,” seemingly closed out the show. The band put aside their instruments and acted as if they were going to leave the stage, but didn’t actually do so. It wasn’t technically an encore, as instead it was the band waving while Joan searched for a dropped guitar pick that had fallen into her shoe. She promptly gave it to the fan that pointed it out and then the show went on.
After a quick cover of The Dee Jays’ “Real Wild Child (Wild One),” the show concluded with Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People.”
The band was on stage for roughly 70 minutes but squeezed 18 songs into that time slot… Half of them were covers, counting the two Runaways songs. That’s precisely why part of me questions their inclusion in the Hall Of Fame when other bands that have sold tens of millions more albums with more original hits, many of which influenced shifts in rock music itself, have yet to be inducted.
But at the same time, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts put on a damn good show. The band, whose current lineup has been intact since 2016 but features members dating back to the late 1980’s and 1990’s, sounded great and delivered on everything I wanted to hear. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing them again and they would make a great opener for Def Leppard on a larger scale tour.
When they finished, I stared off at the rides in the fairgrounds, once again reminiscing about early visits in my youth (both for concerts and actually riding the rides). The stage was set for Foreigner extremely quickly, and I expected them to be on stage at 9:30 (which was a good 15-20 minutes away from when the stage was ready).
However, Foreigner didn’t take the stage until nearly 9:50. Their stage set-up was nearly identical to the last time I saw them, which was as an opening act for Def Leppard in 2015. It was also extremely similar to the first time I saw them in 2007, also as an opening act for Def Leppard.
Like many bands from this era, Foreigner has gone through their share of lineup changes over the last few decades. The only remaining original member is founding guitarist Mick Jones. Some special 40th Anniversary shows in recent years have featured the return of original members including Lou Gramm.
Mick Jones, age 73, is not immune to health problems of his own and they sometimes sideline the guitarist… Which begs the question… Is it really Foreigner without a single original member performing? It’s an interesting thing to think about, especially during a time when many classic rock bands from the 70’s are reaching an age where they should be calling it a day. In my mind, there should be at least one person from the original band that created the music on tour. Otherwise, it becomes a glorified tribute act, and Foreigner is perhaps the biggest one yet.
I was concerned when I saw that Jones did not appear at the band’s show in Wisconsin the night before, and it turned out he was not present for this show either. Much like my conflicting ideas about Joan Jett’s inclusion in the Hall Of Fame, I was conflicted while watching Foreigner take the stage with zero people involved in the writing and recording of the songs they were playing. They sounded great, as they have each time I’ve seen them. But how genuine was this concert? How can I not think of it as a tribute band when no one on stage was actually responsible for the songs they were performing?
The show opened with “Long, Long Way From Home,” a song I had yet to see live through my first two times seeing the band. “Double Vision” and “Head Games” followed in quick succession and the crowd was eating it up.
Again, I couldn’t help but think that they sounded amazing. I won’t even begin to get into the lineup changes, as the list of former members easily rivals that of Spinal Tap. Only Jones (who was absent) and saxophonist Thom Gimbel have remained since the mid-1990s, with all others joining at some point in the 21st century. Singer Kelly Hansen is a great replacement for Gramm, as he has a great voice that suits the songs perfectly. Bassist Jeff Pilson (also known for his time with Dokken, Dio, and the hugely underrated Steel Dragon – not to mention producing the first two Last In Line albums) makes the most of the stage, frequently running from side to side.
After “Cold As Ice,” another song I had not seen live before was done… Occasionally, I’m a sucker for a good power ballad and “Waiting For A Girl Like You” is peak cheesy and classic at the same time. And it sounded great.
The rock returned with the fast-paced “Dirty White Boy” before they went all the way back to the beginning (well before any of the current members were in the band) and played the first single “Feels Like The First Time.”
My favorite Foreigner song is “Urgent,” which was preceded by its usual atmospheric keyboard and drum intro that slowly introduced guitars before reaching a crescendo that kicked off the song.
Apparently there is something special about the song “Starrider” that absolutely requires Mick Jones presence, as the band seems to cut the song when he is absent. That was no different tonight, as the song’s spot in the set was instead occupied by a keyboard solo that teetered on EDM/club music (which I didn’t exactly expect to hear at a Foreigner concert), which then transitioned into a drum solo that was fairly decent. Certainly better than what I’ve had to endure during Journey shows recently.
The main set closed out with “Juke Box Hero,” another rock radio classic. The song was jammed out over 10 minutes, which didn’t exactly do it any favors if you ask me. The actual parts of the song sounded great and even had a modern twist at times, but it veered off so many times that I lost track of it and nearly forgot what I was even watching.
After a brief encore, the band returned to the stage and kicked off a long, LONG bit of nonsense about “feeling the groove” or some shit. Apparently every band from this era has to have something that really eats up time on stage, whether it be Styx’s astronomy lesson, REO Speedwagon’s stand-up comedy, Journey’s relentless solos and story time, or Foreigner’s incessant lessons on love.
It seemed to go on forever before they finally started playing the ballad “I Want To Know What Love Is.” While I have no shame in admitting to loving the cheesiness of “Waiting For A Girl Like You,” I’m not as big on “I Want To Know What Love Is.” In fact, I don’t think it’s anywhere near as good. Yet here it was in the encore, as it always seems to be. And once again it featured backing vocals by special guests from a local high school, this time being Williamsville High. And much like last time, I could barely hear them.
Following the molasses, frontman Kelly Hansen addressed the crowd, thanking them and mentioning the beautiful night for the show. Then he completely baffled me by saying “It’s hard for us to wrap our heads around that 40 years later, we’re still here.”
My thought was “yeah, because none of you were there 40 years ago.” With how things have gone over the last decade or so, perhaps they will go on forever though. With a constant revolving door of new band members and no shame in playing shows with zero original members, they can just go on for eternity. I’ll be seeing them live again in 2058 when I’m in my early 70’s and they’ll be saying “It’s hard for us to wrap our heads around that 80 years later, we’re still here!” and I’ll be telling my grandchildren about seeing the original Foreigner tribute band, not this fourth generation tribute band nonsense.
Maybe Foreigner is onto something. This could be the wave of the future. With modern day rock bands struggling to sustain success or attract crowds of this size, perhaps the future consists of these classic rock bands just replacing members one by one until there aren’t any original members left but there is still a version of the band on tour, playing these classic rock sounds to those enjoying the music of their great-great-grandparents.
Foreigner 2018 ended the set, predictably, with “Hot Blooded.”
For what it was, it was a great show. Two classic bands playing a bunch of classic rock radio staples. Of the two, I think I enjoyed Joan Jett more but Foreigner sounded slightly better, both in performance and sound quality. The set times were nearly identical despite this being billed as a Foreigner headline show, and they certainly lost points for playing only 11 songs and filling so much time with the keyboard/drum solos, extended “Juke Box Hero,” and the love manifesto that preceded “I Want To Know What Love Is.” Did we really need the solo? Couldn’t they have performed another song, such as “Blue Morning, Blue Day” instead?
But that’s why Foreigner is a perfect state fair band.
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