Foreigner right at home in Windsor

BY MATTHEW CLAIRMONT

The question at the start of the festivities Friday night was obvious: was this the Lou Gramm of old - one of the world’s most recognizable vocalists - or an old Lou Gramm? As the crowd started to fill a smoky, humid Windsor Exhibition Arena, it appeared the answer would be just as obvious.

One could catch a few brief glimpses of the Foreigner front man during the opening set featuring the Bedrock Blues Band and Valley-based rock group Ambush. Gramm, looking all of his 57 years, played the part of a withered rock star convincingly before taking the stage, his movements slow and deliberate. He walked with a noticeable hunch.

However, as the evening progressed and anticipation of his onstage appearance mounted, all doubts were cast aside with the opening lines of “Double Vision”, Foreigner’s 1978 hit that reached #2 on the Billboard US Hot 100 chart.

The entire evening was electric, starting just after its eight o’clock schedule. The boys of the Bedrock Blues Band and their blend of traditional and modern blues filled the house. Their set, which lasted approximately 45 minutes, was clean and crisp, and set the tone for the harder rock style of Ambush.

After a pair of original songs, Ambush’s hour-long set was composed of several covers of original songs by artists such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, Three Doors Down, KISS, Lenny Kravitz and Canada’s own The Tragically Hip.

The high-octane rockers executed the tributes skillfully and – with few exceptions - flawlessly, appealing to both the younger crowd in the family seating as well as the older crowd below.

Gramm the man

But the man they came to see was Gramm, at his peak one of the most powerful and distinctive voices from the rock music landscape. Born in Rochester, New York, Louis Grammatico launched his recording career when he went from drumming with a few regional rock bands in the late ’60s to signing with the blues-rock band Black Sheep in 1970. They recorded two albums that were moderately successful and played throughout the U.S. with acts like KISS, Argent and Ted Nugent, among others.

After the 1974 dissolution of Black Sheep, Grammatico got a call from British guitarist Mick Jones who was forming a new group. In 1976 Louis Grammatico became Lou Gramm, and Foreigner’s debut album on Atlantic Records neared the top of the U.S. charts. The band has dominated radio airplay around the world ever since with such hits as “Feels Like The First Time”, “Cold As Ice”, “Long Way From Home”, and “I Want To Know What Love Is”.

In 1981 they released the album 4, which is widely regarded among the greatest rock albums of all time. It was five years later, in 1986, when tensions between Gramm and Jones grew to the point that Gramm established his solo career with the 1987 album Ready Or Not. The album had immediate success with the Top Five hit “Midnight Blue”, which was Billboard’s most-played single of the year at rock radio.

Though he returned to make another album with Foreigner, Gramm wanted the band to stick to its pure rock roots while Jones’s vision embraced the lucrative synthesizer ballads we now equate with the mid-to-late 1980s.

In 1996, after he and Jones were able to resolve their personal difficulties and reunite, Gramm’s career and life nearly came to an end. After being diagnosed with a benign but possibly inoperable brain tumour - which had been causing headaches, memory loss and, ironically, double vision – he underwent an experimental surgery that removed the tumour and he began a long, difficult recovery.

Gramm toured with Foreigner through the end of 2002, at which time he rejuvenated his solo career with his brothers, drummer Ben and bassist Richard Grammatico, guitarist Danny Mancuso and keyboardist Andy Knoll, who form the current line-up of the Lou Gramm Band. His health and energy have rebounded and Gramm has toured North America since January 2004 with the same powerful show that rocked Windsor Friday night.

Largely a retrospective

It was largely a retrospective of some of Gramm’s best work with Foreigner, but also included some of his underappreciated solo material with a few personal favourites sprinkled in. Forget what it’s not; this was classic rock at its finest, stripped down to the bare bones without excessive production or unnecessary instrumentation.

The crowd roared as Gramm slowly made his way front and centre with the booming bass drum in the background in the middle of a skillful guitar rift. It was as if the entire building held its collective breath; the silence in the split second before he started was rich. But as soon as he uttered,“Feeling kinda dirty” - the opening line to “Double Vision” - everyone knew what kind of show Gramm would deliver.

The Bedrock Blues Band and Ambush were both sensational and had the joint jumping, but the professional display from this point on was remarkable. There was no strain in the voice or body language of Gramm, who instantly transformed into a seasoned showstopper.

Thanks to the explosion of the Internet and popular sites like YouTube, his music remains accessible and relevant to today’s generation, and these songs remain staples at school dances and on students’ mp3 players and iPods.

But for one night three decades after the debut of Foreigner, Gramm proved he still had what it takes and more, pleasing the crowd into the wee hours with a set that was as fresh and powerful as it must have been in years past.

This wasn’t the Lou Gramm of old, but it wasn’t an old Lou Gramm, either. It was a supremely gifted musician with a keen creative instinct and crowd awareness whose talent brought down the house and left a lasting impression on his fans in Windsor.