Feels Like the Last Time: Foreigner plays Tuscaloosa as part of farewell tour

Between its 2014 stop with Styx and Don Felder, and this Tuesday's concert with Loverboy, Foreigner has brought an FM playlist full of classic rock to the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater.

In 2014, Styx delved deep into its gold, while Felder leaned heavily on years with the Eagles. Foreigner likewise knew what crowds came for, playing a 10-song streak of nothing but hits: "Double Vision," "Head Games," "Cold as Ice," "Waiting for a Girl Like You," "Feels Like the First Time," "Urgent," "Starrider," "Juke Box Hero," "I Want to Know What Love Is" (backed by a Holy Spirit Catholic School elementary choir), and "Hot Blooded."

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Opening Tuesday will be Canadian rock band Loverboy, who cracked Top 10 with "Turn Me Loose," "Hot Girls in Love," "Lovin' Every Minute of It," "This Could Be the Night," and "Notorious," just missing the No. 1 slot with the Friday afternoon DJ staple "Workin' for the Weekend."

Foreigner's October set lists show crowds may get even more ― in 2014, the band co-headlined with Styx, each night swapping out the order ― as this tour's billed as its farewell. With six multi-platinum studio albums, spanning 1977 to 1987, numerous compilations, and a string of hits that began, appropriately enough, with "Feels Like the First Time," Foreigner may add more, possibly hits such as "Blue Morning, Blue Day," "Dirty White Boy," or "Long, Long Way from Home."

The "Feels Like the Last Time" tour ― yes, they went there ― began in July and will extend into 2024.

Founding member Mick Jones, last from the original lineup, named the group for its half-English, half-U.S. collective: No matter where they played, the joke went, at least half would be foreigners. At 78, he's a decade or more older than the rest, and has suffered health issues in the past decade that kept him out of some shows. He is back on tour, but typically only steps on stage for certain select numbers.

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"He's in good shape," said Jeff Pilson, bass player with Foreigner since 2004. "I find his doctors very, very conservative as to what he can do ... and Mick agrees with me.

"Pretty much these days he just wants to come out at the end, for 'Hot Blooded,' the fun stuff. But that can change, too, night to night."

Jones wrote or co-wrote most Foreigner songs, some with original lead singer Lou Gramm, who split in 2003, though he rejoined Jones, and other original members, for anniversary shows in 2017 and 2018. Kelly Hansen stepped up into that high-ranging slot in 2005, and has remained since. Hansen, who'd sung with Slash, Unruly Child, and his own band Hurricane before joining Foreigner, knew he had big rock-tenor shoes to fill.

“Mick and I had a lot of discussions," Hansen said, in an interview with The Tuscaloosa News in 2014, about how to arrange the music, "and one of the things we agreed about, when I go to a concert, I want to hear the songs the way I learned to love them.”

Also in Foreigner now are Pilson, who serves as musical director; keyboardist Michael Bluestein, since 2008; guitarist Bruce Watson, since 2011; and drummer Chris Frazier, since 2012.

Though from the blur of tours Pilson can't remember a lot of specifics about the 2014 Tuscaloosa show, he did recall those audiences being revved up, "especially when we got down South," he said.

Pilson was a veteran when the Foreigner gig came up, having played with a pair of bands known by their founder's surnames, in Dio (Ronnie James Dio), and Dokken (Don Dokken), co-writing several of the latter's best-known, such as "Alone Again," "It's Not Love" and "Just Got Lucky." He'd also lead his own bands, and produced and recorded with numerous others.

Pilson played bassist Jorgen of fictional metal band Steel Dragon in the 2001 movie "Rock Star," starring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. The drummer in that group was Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin's John Bonham, and the rhythm section players hit it off. Bonham worked with Foreigner for a 2004 benefit show, encouraging Jones to revamp; Foreigner had gone on a brief hiatus after Gramm left in 2003.

"They gave me a call," PIlson said, "and the chemistry was great.

"I was a huge Foreigner fan. It's great to be in a band whose music you really do love. It's just been nothing but an honor, and a great responsibility; we have a great legacy to keep up."

With 16 songs charting Top 30, "doing a set list is like cheating, for us," he said. "Obviously, there are certain things you have to include. You can't not do 'I Want to Know What Love Is' (a multi-platinum-selling No. 1); you can't not do 'Juke Box Hero' or 'Hot Blooded.' "

Also a staple of their live shows for the past 15 or so years, Foreigner invites a local choir to back them on that No. 1 power ballad, filling in where the original recording features the New Jersey Mass Choir, and Jennifer Holliday. This Tuesday, Tuscaloosa County High School will join the band on stage. Foreigner teams with the Grammy Foundation to boost school music programs. The band donates $500, and proceeds from sale of greatest hits CDs also goes to Tuscaloosa County High's music efforts.

"When there's budget cuts at school, music is the first thing that gets cut," said Pilson, who began his music studies in public schools. And then there's the bonus for TCHS students, performing for a larger-than-usual audience: The 2014 show nearly sold out the 8,000-seat Tuscaloosa Amphitheater.

Foreigner, with all its members fans of Foreigner, knows what audiences want to hear, so arrangements stick close to recordings, though they will stretch out and jam on certain songs, such as "Juke Box Hero" or "Urgent."

"You've gotta do it," Pilson said. "It's a rock 'n' roll band."

Yes, this is really the Foreigner farewell tour, he said.

"It's not one of those KISS deals," he said, laughing. But it's also not the end. "It's the farewell TOUR. The end of the nine-months-a-year touring cycles.

"Will we disappear? I don't believe so."

The band released its last album of all-original music in 2009, "Can't Slow Down," but has cut a couple of singles since. Jones, Pilson and company have been working on new music; they hope to record in 2025, once the tour ends. And they may still perform, on occasion.

"We're not gonna shrivel up; that's what we know for sure," Pilson said, laughing.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Foreigner brings farewell tour to Tuscaloosa with Loverboy