Foreigner performs concert in Sarasota

Through most of the 1980s, if you turned on a rock 'n' roll radio station, there was a good chance you'd hear a song by Foreigner.

Such hits as "Cold as Ice," "Hot Blooded" and "I Want to Know What Love Is" made the band, with its hard-rock flavored pop songs, one of the biggest-selling groups of all time.

Foreigner, like most bands whose members are pushing 50 years old, has gone through a lot of personnel changes since its heyday, and the lineup that will play at Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota on Monday has only one member from the lineup that scored all those massive hits.

Founding guitarist Mick Jones is still at the helm of the band, and since he wrote or co-wrote most of the Foreigner hits and was the primary designer of the Foreigner sound -- and the purveyor of some of those great guitar lines -- that's important.

But original vocalist Lou Gramm, whose powerful, bluesy singing ignited so many of those songs, is long gone. Gramm has an able replacement in Kelly Hansen, who's actually Foreigner's fourth frontman. He's a journeyman hard-rock vocalist who has been with Foreigner for almost a decade

Details: 8 p.m. Jan. 12, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets: $52.62 Information: 941-953-3368, vanwezel.org.

-- Marty Clear

This story was originally published January 8, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Foreigner performs concert in Sarasota ."