Foreigner reunites original band members at Sturgis

BUFFALO CHIP, S.D. – Foreigner is the band everyone doesn’t know, except for every one of their hits.

"Juke Box Hero." "I Want to Know What Love Is." "Cold as Ice." "Head Games." "Hot Blooded." "Urgent."

For 40 years, the band has enjoyed generous airplay following hit after worldwide hit. They represent the kind of experience where you walk into a bar and "Feels Like the First Time" is playing in the background.

And that’s where we are on Saturday night, at a hotel bar in South Dakota with most of the band. They’ve just finished crushing a concert during the Sturgis motorcycle rally and buckets of beer are being hoisted across by the bartender.

There’s reason to celebrate. The concert played at the campground and concert venue Buffalo Chip saw a rare reunion of the band’s original members, along with the current lineup.

Minutes earlier, current frontman Kelly Hansen was sharing the stage with rock legends Lou Gramm and Mick Jones, who co-founded the band in 1976. Jones, 73, and Gramm, 68, co-wrote most of the band’s biggest hits and are members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

The band plans to perform four more shows like this one, two on the West Coast and two in the East. Its typical tour includes only Jones, raising criticism that the lineup most people have seen recently is little more than a cover band. Gramm, who underwent brain surgery in 1997, was there Saturday night to help remind listeners that the original Foreigner still rocks.

“The parts that you learned to love on the record need to be there,” Gramm said of the combined group’s approach to concerts. “That’s what you hang your hat on.”

Band members rehearsed in a nearby hotel before taking the stage, making sure both Hansen and Gramm could share vocal duties and working out technical details about medleys, bridges and any key changes.

“Of course everyone knows the songs and it doesn’t take too much rehearsal,” Hansen said before the show.

Saturday night, those pieces came together in a thunderous performance. Grown men – bearded, leather-clad, motorcycle-riding, cigar-smoking men – sang along, shouting out the lyrics as Hansen strode the stage with Gramm and Jones.

Thousands crowded before the stage for the show. And for a few hours, Foreigner was welcomed like the old friends they are.

“I prefer to think we’re classic, not old,” Gramm said with a laugh.