Lou Gramm joins Foreigner for song at Toronto show with Lynyrd Skynyrd

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Lynyrd Skynyrd and Foreigner

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RBC Amphitheatre

Thursday night

RATING: *** (3 out of four)

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When is a band no longer itself?

Is it when there are no founding members left on stage, as was the case on Thursday night during the Double Trouble Double Vision tour with co-headliners Lynyrd Skynyrd and Foreigner touching down at RBC Amphitheatre for a nostalgic night of ‘70s-era rock?

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Maybe – except both groups are Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honorees – Skynyrd in 2006 and Foreigner more recently in 2024, with guitarist Mick Jones still the official group leader for the latter even though he gave up touring in 2022 due to Parkinson’s disease and is currently dealing with Alzheimer’s.

So even if we logically know all the original members are no longer on the road, the industry itself still accepts them as a group and certainly the thousands of fans who packed the amphitheatre from the seats right up to the lawns seemingly had no problems watching them, purists aside.

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Especially since Foreigner’s original lead singer Lou Gramm, now 76 years old with his performing retirement coming this year, showed up on Thursday night to introduce the group, plug his first solo album in 17 years, Released, and later sang lead vocals on the last song of the band’s 90-minute set, Hot Blooded.

“Now usually when I’m out here on stage I have a band behind me so this is new to me,” said Gramm, who appeared solo on stage before Foreigner began its performance.

“You could say that it’s feeling like the first time (laughs). “This is a very special night. We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Foreigner. It doesn’t seem that long, but it is.”

Foreigner’s latest lead singer is from Mexico

The tiny but powerful Mexican-born Luis Maldonado, who’s performed with Foreigner since 2021 but moved to frontman at the end of 2025 when Kelly Hansen retired, otherwise sang lead vocals during the group’s hits-heavy performance with such standouts as Double Vision, Cold as Ice, Waiting For a Girl Like You, Jukebox Hero, and I Want To Know What Love Is, the latter accompanied by a youth choir from Guelph.

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But it was Feels Like The First Time, Urgent and Hot Blooded that actually got fans on their feet, and I personally could have done without the mood-dampening cover of Bridge Over Troubled Water, which Maldonado said they recorded previously for a 50th anniversary concert documentary about Foreigner coming out later this year.

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As for Lynyrd Skynyrd, who lost three band members in a 1977 plane crash, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, their southern rock went down smoother in some places than it did others.

Led by Ronnie’s brother, Johnny Van Zant – who’s been lead vocalist since the group reformed in 1987 – the nine-member ensemble kicked their hour-and-40-minute set off strong with Working For MCA, What’s Your Name, That Smell, and Saturday Night Special.

“Canada! Skynyrd’s in the house!” yelled Van Zant, with an American flag wrapped around his mic stand, to huge cheers.

There were a few lulls here and there, but the three-guitar attack of Rickey Medlocke, whose history with Skynyrd goes all the way back to 1971-72 and since 1996, Mark Matejka, and Damon Johnson – was hard to ignore.

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The energy picked back up again with Gimme Back My Bullets, Tuesday’s Gone – dedicated to founding guitarist Gary Rossington who died in 2023 – Simple Man, which Van Zant dedicated to both American and Canadian troops – and Call Me The Breeze.

Then there was the show-ending one-two punch of Sweet Home Alabama (and its Neil Young-bashing verse) and encore song Free Bird.

I mean what else were they going to play at the end?

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Lynyrd Skynyrd Set List

Workin’ for MCA

What’s Your Name

That Smell

Saturday Night Special

Double Trouble

On the Hunt

Don’t Ask Me No Questions

I Need You

Gimme Back My Bullets

The Ballad of Curtis Loew

Tuesday’s Gone

Simple Man

Gimme Three Steps

Call Me the Breeze

Sweet Home Alabama

ENCORE:

Free Bird

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Foreigner Set List

Double Vision

Head Games

Cold as Ice

Waiting for a Girl Like You

Say You Will

Dirty White Boy

Feels Like the First Time

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Urgent

Keyboard and Drum Solo

Juke Box Hero

ENCORE:

Long, Long Way From Home

I Want to Know What Love Is

Hot Blooded

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