Live at Deer Creek

Foreigner's 2003 DVD Live at Deer Creek is the best complete live home video that's readily and officially available. Although it doesn't capture Foreigner in its classic, late-'70s/early-'80s glory days, this 74-minute DVD does feature 12 of the greatest, most popular songs of that time. Live at Deer Creek was filmed on June 19, 1993, in front of 18,000 fans at Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, IN. The lineup at the time featured the original creative core of lead vocalist Lou Gramm and lead guitarist/keyboardist Mick Jones along with keyboardist Jeff Jacobs, bass guitarist Bruce Turgon, saxophonist/rhythm guitarist Scott Gilman, and drummer Mark Schulman. The DVD begins with separate interviews with Gramm and Jones discussing their reunion. This Indiana gig was part of the tour promoting 1992's collection The Very Best...and Beyond. Despite the fact that three new songs ("Soul Doctor," "Prisoner of Love," and "With Heaven on Our Side") were included on this album, none of them are part of Live at Deer Creek. Predictably, it's just the hits, but what hits they are: "Long, Long Way from Home," "Double Vision," "Head Games," "Waiting for a Girl Like You," "Blue Morning, Blue Day," "Cold as Ice," "That Was Yesterday," "Feels Like the First Time," "Urgent," "Juke Box Hero," "I Want to Know What Love Is" (with the Prayer Warriors choir contributing the soaring, gospel-tinged backing vocals), and "Hot Blooded." These songs are so familiar, having justifiably lodged deep in the brain, that it's immediately noticeable whenever Foreigner stretches some of these rugged performances out to jam, especially "Urgent" and "Hot Blooded." Live at Deer Creek is sure to please both casual and die-hard Foreigner fans. Young fans who missed out on the pleasures of the bygone arena rock era could use Live at Deer Creek as a primer to understand what all the fuss was about. ~ Bret Adams, All Music Guide