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Hello Again Let's Go Shake It Up Best Friend's Girl Candy-O I Saw The Light Dangerous Type Moving In Stereo Black Maria You Might Think Drive Bang The Drum You're All I've Got Bye Bye Love Not Tonight
Just What I Needed
Review by Stephanie Regan:
I went to the show with a couple of huge Todd fans from Charlottesville, VA. They were Bill Bricker, Stephen Pollack and his son Nick, and Eric Lund. Stephen used to be Bebe Buell’s guitar player in her band The Gargoyles.
We got to the show @7:00PM. I bought a copy of The New Cars CD at the souvenir booth. The release day was on June 6! I was listening to it coming up Route 29. Bill was playing it for all of us to hear in his Caravan.
Before the show, I talked to a guy who has a guitar just like Todd’s new red and white one he uses on stage at The New Cars shows. He wanted to get the guitar signed by Todd. He talked to a girl from The New Cars meet and greet and she got the guitar signed by all of the band! He took me around to the backstage area before the show and pointed out where Kasim was smoking a cigarette near the backstage door. I didn’t bother him before the show. It looked like he was wearing a New Cars t-shirt (the one with the TNC logo).
Blondie came on at 8PM and played for about an hour and ten minutes. They were good. I knew a lot of their songs. I was sitting between two blonde girls who were Blondie fans. They were really into it! I thought I saw Kasim watching the first part of their show. Debbie Harry was waving to the crowd and was happy. Blondie had a good turnout. She gave her high heels away to fans in the pit. After Blondie’s set, a lot of people were leaving.
I saw Kasim’s guitar tech Charlie from the Meat Loaf shows getting Kasim’s bass ready before The New Cars came on. Kasim can’t go anywhere without his Charlie! :)
I spoke to a guy behind me who is a big fan of Prairie’s before The New Cars came on. I thought I heard at first that he knew him so I asked him do you know him and he said no “only in my dreams!” I thought that was cute.
I saw a lot of Blondie shirts, one Cars shirt, New Cars shirts, a few Todd shirts, and one Van Halen shirt!
The New Cars came on at 9:30PM. The set was really cool! At the beginning of the show, they had pictures on all of the screens of them in various funny faces! It reminded me of the pictures from The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night movie. The show was excellent! I was singing along to all of the songs. I LOVED hearing Kasim sing “Drive”. I stood up after the song and clapped and clapped and clapped. The only songs they cut out due to time restraints were All Mixed Up (one of the Cars songs that Kasim’s sings which I would have loved to have heard) and Open My Eyes. I wish TR would have had time to do that song! The songs I really enjoyed hearing live were: “Let’s Go”,”Candy-O”, “I Saw The Light”, “Black Maria” “Drive”, and “Dangerous Type”. When Elliot was singing “Dangerous Type”, he pointed in my direction.
Near the beginning of the show, Kasim was having trouble with his bass speakers so in between songs, he kept going over to the speakers to tweak stuff on them. You know him, always the perfectionist! :) At another point in the show, Kasim slid over to Elliot’s side of the stage and sang with him. He did that twice. Near the end of the show, Kasim was singing on his side of the stage and all of a sudden, Elliot comes over to him and scares him! Kasim looked at Elliot and made a surprised face!.
After “You Might Think”, Todd was talking and I noticed Kasim had left the stage. I think that’s his smoke break time.
I don’t think Todd mentioned the CD release date was on June 6! He did mention about the bus accident Monday. Elliot broke his left collarbone. He seemed to be doing ok. He was waving and smiling to everyone.
There was a tie for the best dressed of the evening. I loved Todd’s burgundy jacket and Kasim’s black jacket with some sort of design on it. They should be in GQ magazine!
I loved seeing Todd’s new red and white guitar. I wanted to see Todd’s new guitar with the Utopia eye design on it. He did play it, but I wasn’t paying attention to Todd then. ;)
Near the end of the show, I noticed Kasim was giving away guitar picks to some lucky fans in the pit.
After the encore, Kasim was waving to people in the audience. He waved over in my direction before he left the stage. Todd didn’t really wave that much. Elliot was waving and was very happy. Greg and Prairie were waving too.
The show ended at 11:00PM. I spoke to Prairie’s cousin after the show by accident. I saw two women who had backstage passes on and I asked them if they went to the meet and greet and they said no. One of the women said “I’m Prairie’s cousin.” I told her I was sorry to hear about Vince and she said thank you.
I saw a lot of people going backstage after the show. I had some small gifts I wanted to give all of the guys but I never had the chance to give them their gifts. I almost got backstage but then a guy from Wolf Trap said everyone had to go. I was really disappointed that I was so close to getting back there yet so far away.
All in all, I had a nice time. I hope the tour will have a second leg so I can see it again.
Review by Audrey:
The show was really great. Several people around me were skeptical too but once the show started, their skepticism went out the window!
I never stay until the end of the show (because of the time it takes to get out of the parking lot) but found I just could not leave. I got home late and am paying for it today but it was well worth it.
They did not sing Open My Eyes. They closed with Just What I Needed and Let the Good Times Roll. I also only remember Kasim only singing lead on Drive.
Thanks again for a great show! I hope the tour goes on for years to come!
Review by CB:
By the end of their set, I was thinking, "O, God, this is a HUGE mistake. It's gonna be awful! A bunch of old guys will come out & jump around imploring me to ‘put my hands together now’...”
Then, TNC took the stage & acquitted themselves rather well. With the exception of the clown Prince (I don't know what this thing is that PP has for polka dots – he’s even painted his drum kit with them) they were all attired as you would expect/hope. They were more animated than any Cars show but crowd vamping and jumping around was kept to a minimum. The band needed a little more "filler convo" between songs as it was taking Elliot a lot of extra time to change guitars. He could get the one he was playing off but the roadie would have to strap him into the next one. He clearly looked uncomfortable for the first half or so of the set. I guess the adrenaline (or the cortisone shot) kicked in at that point. Later, he attempted a “thumbs up” gesture but rather quickly decided that wasn’t such a great idea. Todd slipped into a couple of what appeared to be reflex straddle jumps but he did manage to leave his signature guitar-gunslinger moves at home.
Mostly, their set was: we play, you listen. There were people up dancing & singing but they were doing so on their own, rather than at the band’s urging. They did close with the “Leno arrangement” of LTGTR which I found quite silly – to the point of embarrassment – when they did it then. As the last song of the night.....outside.....on the cusp of summer....it’s STILL a little goofy but at least it makes a lot more sense than it did in the vacuum of a TV studio. I took it as kind of a "wink & a nod" to the audience that, after all and in the end, it’s ONLY rock & roll...
As others have said, they sounded great. Not flawless, but on the whole great. TR’s voice & performance did justice to the material. The only song I thought his voice just didn’t work for was, "Let’s Go." He didn’t make any mistakes on it but something (tone, pitch, dunno, I’m not a musician so I don’t have the vocabulary) just didn’t sound right for me on that song. The local radio station that covered the concert played the original "Let’s Go" right afterward it was obvious that was one song that he just shouldn’t do. I would preferred that they drop it from the set list or let somebody else have a go at it. I also think there was a lyrical flub at one point (during "Bye Bye Love") but it was rather minor. If I hadn’t been conditioned to listen for it I’m not sure I would have noticed.
The set highlights for me were "Candy-O", "Dangerous Type", and "Moving In Stereo." I don’t know how technically difficult Greg’s keyboard work is on the last two but it is critical to making them work & he was great!! I came in thinking I could do w/o the TR songs in the set as I’ve heard them live many, many times but I really enjoyed EE & TR’s lead guitar interplay on "I Saw The Light" and Kaz & Prairie [he looks goofy but the man can flat-out play!!] got their chance to shine on the 2nd half of "Bang The Drum" - a song that’s been acoustic-ized & uke-ized in performance for so long it was cool to hear them back away from the shared mic and do the 2nd half of the song as it was originally written.
My biggest disappointment on the night was the abbreviated set list. Wolftrap is a great place to see a show, but it’s owned & operated by the National Park Service and sits in the middle of some rather affluent communities. Consequently, they have a rather early curfew for weeknight shows. Some of the stuff I was most looking forward to hearing (Kaz on "All Mixed Up" and Elliot’s guitar work on "Open My Eyes") got dropped in the interest of time.
Having finally had the opportunity to see & hear a whole show live, my recommendations would be as follows:
My final thought on TNC for now would be that they do genuinely seem to enjoy playing together. A lot of the additional animation from this show was their interaction with each other to the point of smiling and goofing around with each other. If that’s the case write, fellas, write!! Your chops get you one pass on a set list but the next tour (if there’s to be one) HAS to be lot lighter on your past and a lot heavier on your present.
Review by Bob Cerminaro:
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Many thanks to Brian K. O'Malie for the photos on this page (all photos are copywrited and courtesy of Brian K. O'Malie). |
