Original UFO drummer Andy Parker performed Strangers In The Night in full with Lights Out – A UFO Experience in San Antonio.
Of the five men who made Strangers In The Night, only three are still alive. Andy Parker is one of them, and he played the whole record in a Texas nightclub last week.
The original UFO drummer took his project Lights Out – A UFO Experience into Fitzgerald’s in San Antonio on Friday, August 7, performing the 1979 live album in its entirety alongside other material from the band’s catalogue. Fan-shot footage of the show has since appeared online and can be seen down below.
The band behind him was Mark Boals on vocals, known for his work with Yngwie Malmsteen and Uli Jon Roth, bassist Barry Sparks, keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Wayne Findlay of the Michael Schenker Group, and lead guitarist John Adams of Love And War and Dead Man’s Hand.
Parker has been running the project for some time rather than staging a one-off. The group played Warehouse Live Midtown in Houston in February 2025 and were booked at the Arcada Theatre in St Charles, outside Chicago, in June.
The album they are performing has a particular place in the band’s history. Strangers In The Night was recorded in Chicago and Louisville in 1978, released the following year, and is still cited among the strongest live albums ever made. It was also the last thing the classic lineup did together. Michael Schenker left before it reached shops.
That lineup, Phil Mogg, Pete Way, Schenker, Parker and Paul Raymond, no longer exists in any form. Raymond died in April 2019, having played on more than a dozen UFO albums including Lights Out and the live record itself. Way, who co-founded the band, died in August 2020.
UFO began in London in 1969 with Mogg, Parker, guitarist Mick Bolton and Way. Schenker joined in 1973, leaving Scorpions at the invitation of Mogg and Way, and the three albums that followed, Phenomenon in 1974, Force It in 1975 and No Heavy Petting in 1976, produced “Doctor Doctor“, “Shoot Shoot” and “Rock Bottom“. Raymond arrived for 1977’s Lights Out and 1978’s Obsession, which carried “Too Hot To Handle“, “Lights Out” and “Only You Can Rock Me“.
What followed was fifteen years of turnover. The classic five regrouped in autumn 1993 for Walk On Water and a world tour, though Schenker left partway through to concentrate on MSG. Mogg and Way continued, and Schenker returned for Covenant in 2000 and Sharks in 2002 before leaving again. Vinnie Moore took over from 2003, recording You Are Here with Jason Bonham on drums, a run documented on the Showtime live album and DVD.
Parker came back for 2006’s The Monkey Puzzle and stayed through The Visitor, Seven Deadly, A Conspiracy Of Stars and The Salentino Cuts. The final lineup paired him and Mogg with Moore and bassist Rob De Luca, who joined in 2012.
Mogg ended the band in 2022, over 50 years after it started. He suffered a heart attack that August and had two stents fitted. Now 78, he has not performed since. The farewell run had been set to open on October 15, 2022 in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium and close on October 29 at the Fuzz Club in Athens, the city where Moore had played his first show with the band in February 2004.
