11/02/06 - Sovereign Center For Performing Arts, Reading, PA
11/04/06 - New York Nokia Theatre, Times Square, New York City, NY
11/05/06 - New York Nokia Theatre, Times Square, New York City, NY
11/08/06 - Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ
11/12/06 - Paramount Center For The Arts, Peekskill, NY
11/13/06 - The Center For The Arts, Buffalo University, Buffalo, NY
11/15/06 - Turning Stone Casino, Verona, NY
11/17/06 - Foxwoods Casino, Mashantucket, CT
11/18/06 - The Borgata, Atlantic City, NJ
11/19/06 - Merrill Auditorium, Portland, ME
11/21/06 - House Of Blues, Cleveland, OH
11/22/06 - State Theatre, Detroit, MI
11/24/06 - Surf Ballroom, Clear Lake, IA
11/25/06 - Riverside Theatre, Milwaukee, WI
11/26/06 - House Of Blues, Chicago, IL

Before the Atlanta, GA concert (that Kasim will be playing as part of The New Cars), Todd Rundgren is doing a short tour of Canada which started last night. He will be touring with Tony Levin, Jesse Gress and Jerry Marotta. The remaining dates on that tour are:

8/28/06 - Whiskey, Calgary, AB
8/29/06 - The Starlite Room, Edmonton, AB
8/31/06 - Silverado's, Winnipeg, MB
9/02/06 - Capital City Music Hall, Ottawa, ON, Canada
9/03/06 - Club Soda, Montreal, QC
9/04/06 - Danforth Music Hall, Toronto, ON

The best place to look for info, reviews and photos on both these tours is TRConnection.com. Click here for the Todd tour and here for The New Cars. In addition Tony Levin is renowned for keeping a great Tour Diary on his website.

In a similar vein on MySpace.com there's a nice review of Kasim's gig in Providence, RI last weekend here (and announcing the gig here).

Direct links to the best photos of Kasim are:

Chatting
Sharing a laugh with the crowd
Kasim and Doug Kennedy at the radio station
Kasim's name at The HandleBar

Kasim also confirms that at the Cleveland gig there will be something special happening after the show (he calls it "late notes"!)

It's not currently known when exactly this interview will air but as the DJs interviewing him are all on the Morning Show it looks likely that it will be on Tuesday 29th August (the day of Kasim's gig in Cleveland, Ohio). The morning show airs from 5.30am until 10.00am but does not appear to stream on the Internet.

Somebody Loves You
Yellow Cab
Where Is My Soul
Libertine
(snippet of Eternal Love)
There Goes My Inspiration
I Don't Mind At All
Are You Happy Now
Drive
Sacrifice
(Intermission)
Jane Doe
Sometimes Love Is A Dangerous Thing
It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference
Cliché
The One Sure Thing
Before She Was Gone
(a verse and chorus of Not Tonight)
Minutes Slipping Past
Don't Hold Me Back
Across The Universe

Apparently "the gig started about 8.45pm, and it wasn't over until a little after 11pm. Kas seemed to be having a great time"!

Many thanks to Joe Lynch for the set list. More photos of this gig will be posted later.

Click here to listen (this is the perma link for the interview).

The recording includes the interview when Kasim talks about Utopia, The New Cars and Meat Loaf plus Kasim and Doug Kennedy play Sacrifice.

(You may need to download it to your computer first before playing the recording.)

Some far better photos than mine of the gig have been added to the Photos section of the website or click here for the direct link.

Many thanks to gRAdy Moates for all the photos on that page.

Kasim's interview was described to me as "Kasim's interview went very well. He was very cordial, friendly and in good humor as always. He talked a bit about his background, who he's played with and so on. I think it's going to draw a lot of people to the show tonight."

Many thanks to Mark for the above info.

This is probably the best venue to see one of Kasim's gigs on the tour because, as well as a relaxed club atmosphere (which Kasim seems to thrive on) they also describe it in all their literature as "a listening room" as here the emphasis is on the music. There is a bar in the room but they have a non-smoking policy and food is only served in the restaurant.

The HandleBar opened in September 1994. At 304 East Stone Avenue it is located just three blocks off Main Street in Downtown Greenville between Main Street and Interstate 385. This venue was originally located at the historic Mills Centre but in May 2001 The Handlebar re-opened at its new, larger and more polished venue. To quote the venue, "since its inception The Handlebar has presented more than 2,000 concerts featuring a vast array of musicians, from the legendary to the unknown. Many performers are Grammy Award winners, others are popular favorites. The Handlebar has specialized in presenting a wide variety of musical genres — from rock ‘n’ roll to blues, from Cajun to reggae, from folk to bluegrass, from jazz to World Beat. Many of the musicians featured at The Handlebar had never performed in Greenville before".

Tickets for the gig tonight are just $16 and can be purchased on the door. This link has more info about Kasim's gig. Doors open at 7.00pm and although it's an 18+ gig, minors are admitted with their parents.

This will be the second longest journey of the tour for Kasim as Staten Island to Greenville, SC is 733 miles by road which will take an estimated 11 and a quarter hours! This is going in a south westerly direction and would mainly be taking the I95, I81 and the I77.

Hopefully Kasim will fly there and back as a roundtrip by air will only take about 2 hours and costs less than $300.

Staten Island to Greenville, SC - 733 miles each way.

Total Tour Mileage - 1,945 miles.

Many thanks to MikeB for all the photos on the page.

As it will be removed after his gig, it's been reproduced here:

(What a great photo they're using(!), however Kasim was not a co-founder of Utopia.)

The article talks about the unfortunate temporary stop in the tour due to Elliot Easten's broken bone and then says:

"But The New Cars already have hit another pothole. The band’s web site has announced that the Atlanta gig will be bassist Kasim Sulton’s last.

In a statement posted on the site, Sulton remorsefully explained that he is leaving The New Cars to fulfill a longstanding prior commitment to singer Meat Loaf and that he hopes to rejoin The New Cars at a later date. A search for Sulton’s replacement is under way.

Despite the aborted tour, Sulton’s departure and disappointing sales of The New Cars’ It’s Alive CD - which spent a mere week on Billboard’s Top 200 at No. 193 and has sold only 16,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan - Cimler remains optimistic about the reformed band’s future.

"We’ll be holding a press conference and issuing a formal statement shortly to confirm a full fall-winter (tour) schedule," he said. "Our goal is to play these makeup dates in the fall, and then come back with an even more extensive tour next summer, including another Boston show.""

This station streams on the Internet (but not for anyone outside US). Click here for the link to hear the stream on Thursday.

The concert on Saturday night was in the acoustic part of Toad's Place called Lily's Pad. Despite a disappointing turnout for a Saturday night, an EXTREMELY dark venue, sound problems and the noise from metal bands playing below coming through the floor, Kasim and Doug put on a great hour and forty minutes gig which the audience loved. Kasim played a mixture of his own songs (both old and new ones), a Cars song, some from Nik Kershaw and, as there were lots of Utopia fans in the audience, several songs from them too.

On Sunday evening the duo played at The Century Lounge in Providence to a smaller but equally enthusiastic crowd. Kasim played this gig without a set list so it was interesting seeing which order he chose the songs when he was on stage - he even included part of Hangman by Led Zeppelin at one point!

The set list, reviews, comments and photos of both these gigs will be added soon.

The next gig on The Kasim Sulton 2006 Tour is in 2 days (Thursday 24th) and is at The HandleBar in Greenville, SC.

Obviously it wouldn't have made sense for Kasim to have returned home last night as Providence is only an hour and a half further along the I95 than New Haven.

The trip home after the gig will take Kasim about three and a half hours.

New Haven to Providence - 103 miles.

Providence to Staten Island - 196 miles.

Total Tour Mileage - 778 miles.

Unfortunately I've been unable to find out much about this venue other than it holds up to 194 people and that it was the sister club of The Call Nightclub (capacity 300) which has shut!

Kasim's last "solo" gig in Rhode Island was in Westerley (at another club which has since closed its doors!) and was almost a sell-out so hopefully there will be a good crowd there tonight, although there were several newspaper articles before his 2002 gig.

Doors open at 8.00pm and the show starts at 9.00pm. It's not been announced whether or not there will be an opening act. Tickets are supposed to be $15 in advance or $20 on the door but they do not appear to be selling them online.

As far as I'm aware this will be Kasim's first gig in Lily's Pad although he has played Toad's Place a few times mostly recently on 15th February with Todd Rundgren on the With A Twist Tour. This will be Kasim's first solo gig in Connecticut since he played Bridgeport in February 2002.

Toad's Place has a very prestigous musical history as it's been open for 31 years and in that time as well as Todd Rundgren and Kasim Sulton, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, U2, The Kinks and Bob Dylan have all played here! In the main hall tonight are 4 locals bands playing with the description Hardcore Summer Slam III so ensure that you get to the right room!

Lily's Pad looks like a small "intimate" room so hopefully it will be packed tonight. There are photos of the venue here. There is a bar in the room and lots of tables and chairs. Apparently it is non-smoking.

Tickets for Kasim's gig are $15 in advance (they can be purchased online here) or $20 on the day of the show. Doors open at 8.00pm and the show starts at 9.00pm. It's not been announced whether or not there will be an opening act. This is advertised as a 21+ show.

This journey will take Kasim about two hours in a north east direction and is just under 100 miles.

Staten Island to New Haven, CT - 95 miles.

Total Tour Mileage - 479 miles.

Kasim describes The New Cars as "I have rarely worked with a group of musicians that I respect more, shared more common interests in and out of music or felt more comfortable with in over thirty years". He also adds "It might be wishful thinking on my part, but my hope is to come back in the not too distant future.". Kasim explains his reason is that Bat Out Of Hell III was finished earlier than expected.

Kasim also says that he will be playing the concert on 8th September in Atlanta, GA

Unfortunately the venue website has not been updated for a while (no gigs are listed at all for August yet) and everytime that I've called it's just gone through to a fax machine.

The good news is that the capacity at the club is almost 200 so people will be able to just turn up on the night and get in okay.

Apparently there's a brief mention of Kasim's gig at this venue in the Providence Phoenix newspaper recommending the gig for something to do on Sunday night, plus an advertisement in the same paper. Unfortuntely both items spell his name incorrectly as Sultan!

Many thanks to Michelle for this info.

"I believe that each member of The New Cars is above all, profesional. They will honor prior commitments that may have been booked with the original The New Cars' dates in mind. "

"I'm glad I got to see Kas play with The New Cars this spring. It was a pleasure to see him, as always."

"As far as Kasim goes I thought the guy did a professional job amidst a shitty concept. "

"Good for Kasim...I think Meat Loaf is going to explode this year and I'm thrilled that Kasim is going to be running the show."

"I thought Kasim did a good job and left his ego at the door. If he were on tour with The Cars I wouldn't mind."

"This whole thing is just getting weird. Very Orwellian...pretty soon they will be denying that Kasim ever existed with the band at all, and someone at the Ministry of Truth will be busy erasing all historical evidence of him."

"Backing vocals are a big part of their sound. Which is why Kas was a great fit. I really wanted this line-up to stay completely intact."

"As far as Kaz goes, the key is that with Mr. Loaf, he's not just the bass player, but the musical director. I'm sure he gets paid quite a bit more for that gig, and it's a more proven gig as well. You can't blame him."

"Kasim's backing vocals blend so nicely and he is such a quality bass player."