{"id":1035,"date":"2020-12-28T01:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T01:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2026-06-28T01:05:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T01:05:39","slug":"foreigner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=1035","title":{"rendered":"Foreigner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

March 1982, Lee Civic Centre, Fort Myers, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a thought that the first concert you go to says something about who you are, and I understand that to a point. The way you\u2019re raised helps determine how your musical tastes develop as you approach your teens, and depending on the family, those musical choices could lead you to something grand (The Clash) or something terrible (Air Supply). My first show had me somewhere in the middle.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t grow up with too much music in the house \u2014 my few musical memories come from long summer road trips where we heard Jerry Vale and John Denver on the 8-track (let me be clear, I HATE these two artists). Disco was popular when I was 9 and 10 \u2014 the Saturday Night Fever<\/em> soundtrack was all the rage in fourth-grade circles \u2014 and to this day I love the voice of Donna Summer and the beat of \u201cDisco Inferno\u201d by The Trammps. But even as 10-year-old I learned that disco was uncool and went searching for a sound which demanded my attention.<\/p>\n

Through a friend I found it in AC\/DC.<\/p>\n

I think, as a rule, every middle-school boy loves AC\/DC. I heard \u201cHighway to Hell\u201d \u2014 with its churning guitar and snarling lyrics \u2014 and just loved it. Finding AC\/DC opened up the world to what is known as classic rock, and so began my discovery of Queen, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and yes, Foreigner.<\/p>\n

Before Mick Jones ruined Foreigner with \u201cI Want to Know What Love Is,\u201d its most popular song which reached No. 1 in 10 countries, the band had a rock edge and curious album covers. Have you ever looked at the cover of Head Games<\/em>? A young woman is cowering in a dirty men\u2019s bathroom \u2014 what the hell is that about? It was grimy, a little dangerous, possibly criminal. The same could be said about most 13-year-old boys.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s fourth album, with the unusual name of 4<\/em>, came out in 1981, and I was quite taken with it. I got the album on vinyl and listened to it constantly \u2014 gravitating toward \u201cUrgent\u201d and of course \u201cJuke Box Hero\u201d. I heard they were on tour, I wanted to go.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s where it gets weird. I was living with my father in Miami, he was recently divorced and at an age \u2014 43 \u2014 where he was still looking to date. I remember thinking my father as always so grown up, but when I turned 43 I didn\u2019t feel like I was a grown up at all. Maybe that\u2019s the way everyone feels, grown-ups are what teenagers see and grown-ups just see themselves as teenagers.<\/p>\n

So my father had an idea. Foreigner was playing in Fort Myers, a town we used to live in, and he would take me to the concert if he could bring a date. My father never acknowledged music, and I can\u2019t say if I ever knew him to go to a concert. He listened to talk radio and while he had some records (Herb Alpert), he never played them. I don\u2019t think he knew who Foreigner was, but I think his date of his did.<\/p>\n

I want to say she was a former secretary of his when he worked in Fort Myers, and she was younger than he was. We went for a nice dinner and then headed off to the Lee Civic Centre for my first rock show. So if you\u2019re keeping score, my first concert involved me as the third-wheel on a date my divorced dad was having with a former secretary to see a band with an album cover showing a young woman about to be attacked in a dirty men\u2019s bathroom. It was also the first time I smelled the scent of what I later learned was \u201cmarijuana,\u201d though now I much prefer<\/em> the term \u201cganja.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yep, my first concert was with my dad.<\/p>\n

I found a setlist to fill in some of my memories, because I was mostly just watching, taking in everything around me. I was one of the younger people there \u2014 I was 13 at the time \u2014 Foreigner seemed like a band more for 20-somethings than teens (I think Supertramp was like this). The venue was relatively new then and held about 7,500 people. We were sitting up a bit, but were directly facing the stage, and I remember how loud everything was. The din of the crowd was fluid, and when the band started up, the wave of the crowd noise mixed with music from the speakers felt like home. It was exciting.<\/p>\n

At this point I knew the band\u2019s popular songs \u2014 \u201cDirty White Boy,\u201d \u201cCold As Ice,\u201d \u201cDouble Vision,\u201d \u201cHead Games\u201d \u2014 and laughed every time the band played a song I knew. Our seats, nestled a little higher up from the floor, was heavy with the pungency of smoke, if you know what I mean, so that may have contributed to my laughing.<\/p>\n

It took me a few songs, but by mid-show I was singing along at the top of my lungs. \u201cUrgent\u201d had me at full throttle, and when the bass kicked in at the start of \u201cJuke Box Hero,\u201d I was a smiling idiot. A blown-up plastic juke box was brought on stage, which by song\u2019s end was then blown apart. I didn\u2019t think you could blow something up inside \u2014 this was a whole new world for me.<\/p>\n

They left after \u201cJuke Box Hero,\u201d and I thought show was over. Nope, encore. The opening song? \u201cFeels Like the First Time\u201d. After \u201cHot Blooded\u201d and \u201cHeadknocker,\u201d the show was over.<\/p>\n

I left the show in a daze, I was talking non-stop about it, though I think my father was just happy it was all over. We were staying the night in Fort Myers \u2014 it was a good three hours from Miami \u2014 and the next stop was the hotel.<\/p>\n

If you must know, I had my own room, while my father had, ummm, one for himself. It was the first time I was in a hotel room by myself, I flipped on the TV, which had cable. It was closing in on midnight and there wasn\u2019t much on, except for this one station showing sports coverage. An all-sports channel, who ever heard of such a thing?<\/p>\n

It was ESPN.<\/p>\n

So I leave this musical writing experiment with what was a night of firsts. I\u2019m not sure what my first concert says about me, but 35 years later going to concerts remains one of my favorite things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 1982, Lee Civic Centre, Fort Myers, Fla. There\u2019s a thought that the first concert you go to says something about who you are, and I understand that to a point. The way you\u2019re raised helps determine how your musical tastes develop as you approach your teens, and depending on the family, those musical choices […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-foreigner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1037,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions\/1037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}