After a twenty four year hiatus that some might call a total retirement, The Cars played the Fox Theater in Oakland on Friday night. The Cars have a new album out "Move Like This," their first release since 1987. I listened to it and was surprised to find it fresh, sounding very much like.... The Cars. This isn't one of those weird old rock star experimental records featuring extended didgeridoo solos inspired by the time their wife made them go to the opera, this is a return to the magic formula. It is even constructed like a Cars album, powering out of the gates with the bubbly "Blue Tip" and "Too Late" but smoothing out into some synth-ed out love songs. Maybe it was listening to "Move Like This" in my car all day or maybe it is all of the vintage concert t-shirts, beer bellies and the bald-on-top ponytails I see milling around before the show but I can't help but feel like I'm in a time warp; as if a quaalude time machine took all the children of the 80's crowded into the Fox back to the sweet and easy days of 1984. I am hoping to get a chance to see my first real live key-tar performance.
The Cars broke into the bigs in the way of FM radio fairy-tales. A bunch of friends that started out playing covers in bars around Toledo, Ohio move to Boston on the coattails of Aerosmith hoping to make it big. Three of five members stage-ify their pedestrian birth names to shake off Ohio and soon enough a Boston radio DJ started to play their songs. The crowd goes wild and they sign a contract with Elektra. Within months they are bona fide rock stars, they make music videos and then between 1984 and 1987 play a few arenas. In 1978, sporting feathery Bowie manes, The Cars released their eponymous first album. It was hit after hit of shoulder dancing magic, six of nine songs becoming lasting staples of classic rock stations. At a time of gas shortages and the lingering 70's malaise, The Cars arrived. It had a sexy album cover, rocking guitars and a top of the line prophet 5 analog synthesizer whizzing over upbeat catchy tunes; a whiff of what was to come.
With that album The Cars defined the arcane music genome term "new wave", a genre occupying the poppy space between real punk and their radio friendly cousins. The synthy, hand-clapping schism from the Sex Pistols that begat The Talking Heads, New Order, Devo and later the English Beat. The Cars were the soundtrack to the John Hughes generation. They were cool, they dated models, they wore sunglasses at night before the song existed. They made music to party to like "Bye Bye Love" and "You Might Think" and they also had some of the original power ballads like "Drive," music to play when trying to "make it" with a girl in the back of your Trans Am.
They kick off an hour and a half whirlwind of three minute pop songs with "Let the Good Times Roll." Maybe just taking their time or perhaps because this is only their third gig back after 24 years, the song lopes on one pluck slower than the studio version I have grown up on. They play the early hits seamlessly mixing in songs from the new album as if they have always belonged there especially "Sad Song", it moves you along. The stage is set to mimic their album cover, panes of led lights hung behind each player lined up on stage flat and democratically. The flashes of light that wave across the screens create an 80's Pepsi commercial vibe. They roll through the radio hits like "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Let's Go" but include songs for the genuine fan like "I'm in Touch With Your World." Their timed encore leads off with "Moving in Stereo" and I half expect Phoebe Cates to splash out of a pool in her red bikini ala Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The show ends with a virile version of "Just What I Needed" and as the crowd fist pumps, The Cars saunter off without much fanfare. Ocasek never said a word and glared down Hawkes when he tried to plug the new album. Still keeping it cool.
Appearing out of nowhere after twenty-four years with a new album you wonder why The Cars, and specifically Ocasek who had been the most vocal about never reuniting, chose to start recording again. Why now? Perhaps Ocasek has been listening to the radio lately and noticed the new new wave rolling through. Bands like Passion Pit, MGMT and Interpol plugging 80's inspired loops over distorted guitars. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. That is in the Bible. The song remains the same. That is Zeppelin. Perhaps Ocasek had this batch of songs ready for the old twenty year song cycle to make its rounds; the dad's record collection effect wherein, without a hint of irony, the next generation starts mindlessly mirroring the last and calling it a revolution. Perhaps Ocasek just wants these newbies to recognize the contribution of their elders to the rock canon.
In their early live performances http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hwE0slNd3Ystill lit up in saturday night fever lights, The Cars changed the beat, shepherding the crowd's head bangers and semi-confused disco divas to the new wave. They were the sound of the uneasy Boogie Nights transition between the 70's and 80's. Tonight their fans were mostly middle aged fist pumpers who either spazzed out with awkward Belinda Carlisle moves or just nodded their heads through the set approvingly. But no matter how badly you dance to this music, then or now, The Cars put on an excellent rock and roll show.
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