Rock band Foreigner to perform Friday at the Ohio State Fair – The Columbus Dispatch

Margaret Quamme| Special to The Columbus Dispatch

If you've listened to classic rock radio stations any time in the past 40 years, you probably know Foreigner: I Want to Know What Love Is, Double Vision, Hot Blooded, Cold As Ice and many more songs likely come to mind.

The band, which is back up to performing a hundred shows a year after a break during COVID, will appear at the Ohio State Fair for a Greatest Hits show on Friday.

The band currently includes lead guitarist Mick Jones, who has been with the group since its formation in 1976, and six other members, who joined the group at various points in time from 2004 up until last year.

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Among them is keyboardist and backing vocalist Michael Bluestein, who spoke by phone from his home in Los Angeles prior to the start of the current tour.

Bluestein has been with the band since 2008.

I was recommended for the gig by a colleague who was playing keyboards for Foreigner at the time but was going to have to leave, so he wanted to help them out and get a replacement for himself, he said. Through serendipity, I ran into him at a music conference and he remembered me because we had worked together before. So he recommended me for the audition.

Bluestein has stayed intrigued with the music over multiple performances.

I have my hands full on a lot of the songs. They're all pretty rich with keyboards, he said.

And the Foreigner songs stand up to time.

They're well-crafted songs, with some incredible vocals. Combine that with guitar rock, great keyboards, great backing vocals in the tradition of the Beatles and bands like that, and the ingredients just come together, he said.

While the songs are sometimes tweaked with new arrangements, what really keeps the music fresh for Bluestein is the experience of touring.

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The big part of it is the audience, the reactions we get, getting to play different venues. Every concert is different, there's a different chemistry every night, depending on what part of the world you're in, what the audience is like, he said.

I like getting them fired up, seeing their faces, getting them to sing along. That keeps it fresh. Sometimes you'll have a much younger audience, and sometimes you'll have an older, more mellow, chill audience. There are always challenges, new energies coming at you.

Foreigner is known for collaborating with local youth choirs on tour, and the Columbus appearance is no exception.

The band will be donating $500 to the All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir, a sub-set of which will be opening for the show with a short set.

The group that's going to be performing is an auditioned small group out of the larger All-Ohio State Youth Choir, said Jon Peterson, the director of the choir. The group that will be performing is the Scarlet Singers.

The group, made up of 16 to 25 high school students, commits to extra rehearsal time and learning extra music.

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The larger All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir consists of about 75 high school students from 68 schools and 48 counties around Ohio. They arrive at the fair five days before it opens to rehearse, and live on the fairgrounds through the fair, performing at the opening ceremony and then at six to eight concerts a day.

At the Foreigner concert, the Scarlet Singers are going to be singing a combination of art music and popular music, all a cappella. That was actually a request by Foreigner. They didn't want to have instruments. They will hopefully inspire the audience and get them ready for an amazing show by Foreigner, Peterson said.

I really applaud Foreigner for being intentional about engaging the youth of the communities where they perform, and thus supporting music education, in this case in Ohio. Not many rock groups do that. The fact that they're highlighting local youth and musicians and emphasizing the importance of music education, it's a true privilege to be a part of that.

margaretquamme@hotmail.com

Foreigner will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Celeste Center, Interstate 71 and East 17th Avenue. Tickets (which include admission to the fair) start at $40. (www.ohiostatefair.com)

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Rock band Foreigner to perform Friday at the Ohio State Fair - The Columbus Dispatch