Oct. 6, 1979 review: The Cars in Memorial Auditorium
Oct. 6, 1979 Revved Up Cars Run Fine – Except for Mid-Set Stall Behind those bug-eyed sunglasses and that angular black hair, Ric Ocasek stands coldly at his microphone Friday night in Memorial Auditorium, looking like a grand vizier in some comic strip set in the 21st century. Ocasek's image is high-modern, a combination of carefully cultivated and immaculately controlled effects. And so is the band, since the Cars are pretty much his brainchild. Visually, they limit the spectrum to three colors – red, white and black – with a bit of green lighting or wavy spotlight projections on their backdrop for contrast. Musically, they're just as minimal. They knock the extraneous stuff out of rock 'n roll, building most of their material off the super-crisp drums of David Robinson and the abrupt chunks of Ocasek's rhythm guitar. It takes a certain kind of intensity to make this kind of music rock, but rock they do. They heighten it with synthesized vocals and Greg Hawkes