Foreigner played their final concerts with Kelly Hansen on Oct. 10 and 11 in Atlantic City. While it marked the end of an era, it also opened the door to the band’s next chapter with new vocalist Luis Maldonado.
“it was a very special moment, deeply emotional. We also had some fun with it, and we pulled some pranks. We wanted to make it a memorable night that not only Kelly would never forget, but none of us would ever forget,” bassist Jeff Pilson tells UCR. “I also wanted to pay tribute to Kelly because he made such a huge contribution to this band. He’s a vital element in what has gotten the band to where where it is today. We’re grateful to him [and] we’re sad he’s gone. We’re going to miss him terribly.”
“He’s a brother, but we’re also really excited for his future. He’s got a great life ahead of him, and we’re excited for the future of the band,” he adds. “It could not have been a better transition. You know, those kind of things can be ugly, and this one was absolutely not, and that’s a testament to everybody being cool, Kelly, especially being cool. And just the nature of this music and this band is that the cream does rise to the top. Once Luis [Maldonado]’s voice was uncovered and we all realized what he had, including Kelly, the future became so clear to us. This whole transition just fell into place naturally and we couldn’t have asked for a better one to be honest with you.”
How Luis Maldonado Became Foreigner’s New Singer
The guitarist started working with Foreigner in 2021 when multi-instrumentalist Thom Gimbel, a longtime member of the group, departed the lineup. As Pilson told UCR then, they initially were looking to replace Gimbel with someone who similarly played a lot of instruments. But after they tried out a few people, they decided to change their approach, since Gimbel had been playing mostly guitar with the current band. Maldonado, who had worked with Train and Lisa Marie Presley in the past, joined the ranks.
As Pilson says now, Maldonado was one of the first people to speak up when Hansen announced his plans to the group that he was going to retire. The guitarist hoped he could convince the vocalist to change his mind, because he didn’t want to see the band end. “He was begging Kelly to stay [and] Kelly said, ‘No, man, it’s time for me to move on.'”
The band members had known that Maldonado had a great voice, from the time he was hired. But it was a series of smaller semi-acoustic shows that keyboardist Michael Bluestein and guitarist Bruce Watson did outside of Foreigner, with Maldonado singing the band’s hit songs, that showed both the group and management that their path forward was there in clear view.
Watch Foreigner Perform With Luis Maldonado in Los Angeles
Luis Also Has Lou Gramm’s Support
They’ve already done some concerts in South America as well, with Maldonado on lead vocals that further galvanized the decision they had made. “He just stepped up and sang the crap out of these songs,” Pilson says, looking back at the past year. “I mean, he just sings them with so much heart and and yet holds the original intention of the songs. Lou Gramm is really excited about Luis doing it. He’s fully endorsing Luis as a singer, which is a pretty cool thing. He just stepped up to the plate and it was just an obvious thing.”
