Johnny Foreigner lay low
When I knew I was reviewing Hundred Reasons on the last night of their tour I looked into the support acts who would be warming up and exciting the crowd. First up was Canterbury; a band I had seen before and knew would get the crowd in the right state of mind. Second was to be Johnny Foreigner. There was a lot of hype online, people attending the gig and who had seen the band perform in the past seemed really pleased that Johnny Foreigner were to be one of the support acts.
As the three-piece band approached the stage and began with a little light singing, I watched as three very different individuals came together to form a mellow opener. As they took their spots and continued with more upbeat tunes, I was left a little disappointed. I was quite excited by what others were saying about this band, but I was less than moved by their performance. They seemed very stationary, not a band that got into the music and moved along to it, encouraging others to follow suit. For the majority of the performance, guitarist Alexei Berrow and bassist Kelly Southern stayed in front of their microphones and didn’t even bother to move a great deal. Give Kelley her dues, she did offer the occasional spring in her step but this was nothing to entertain a crowd excited by Canterbury and desperate to see Hundred Reasons. I can understand if a band wanted to keep a simple set. They may have not enthralled with their performance, their music ranged from slightly upbeat to faster paced darker tunes. Vocally the tunes were rather timid, vocalists had to yell at times to be heard over the music.
They may have given it their all, but on this occasion it may not have been good enough to fully entertain this reviewer.