Doors opened at 7:00 and the backup band was scheduled to start shortly after 8:00. We had reserved seating so there was lots of time to browse the Casino and pop into the Casino's restaurant for the buffet supper. As an added benefit they had playoff hockey on an assortment of big screen TVs which helped to keep us amused - as the "scenery" in the Casino was certainly nothing to write home about!!
After a good supper, we entered the venue and were shown to our table. This was our first time at this place - a cabaret type arrangement with individual tables. Table service included booze and snack food - so all in all, not a bad spot. We quickly realised that there had been no rush to arrive. The place wasn't even a quarter full at this stage - in any event we ordered a couple of beers and awaited the first act. Shortly thereafter the backup band came on the scene. A couple of guys, acoustic and electric guitars. Not much to report here - the singing and playing was ok, but their material was not exactly to our liking - think Neil Diamond type stuff - not offensive but if you were not careful you could nod off. (which I think I did at least once!)
After about 45 minutes of these characters (I forget their name), there was a half hour intermission and on came the evenings main attraction - Lou Gramm. A pretty dramatic entry, first the band, then some power chords, drumming and such, and finally on saunters Lou himself. Unfortunately that is about as good as it got. About half way though the opening song (I believe it was "Feels Like the First Time") it was painfully obvious that the years since Foreigner's heyday in the 80's have not been kind to Mr Gramm's voice. It was not so much that he was slightly off key all night, but more so the fact there was absolutely no range left in his voice to hit anywhere near the high notes that are required to properly belt out the excellent assortment of old Foreigner tunes at his disposal.
So to sum it up; although he played all of the old stuff with the exception of "Urgent" and "Long Long Way from Home", it was a pretty disappointing night. The group gave it their best shot but Gramm's voice was borderline bad and the rest of the band (consisting of his 2 brothers on lead guitar and drums, and a couple of other guys on keyboards and base guitar) seemed barely above bar - band calibre. Try as we might, we just couldn't get into it. Needless to say we didn't buy any t-shirts, cds, hats etc that they were shamelessly trying to peddle after the show.