Review by SueW:
When I found out that Kasim was playing an 'event' (as he called it) with The New Cars on Friday 20th January in Los Angeles, I looked online to see the price of flights. The cheapest I could get was about £700 ($1,200) and that was with flying for over 17 hours so I shelved that idea! Someone then posted that there was another 'event' booked for Sunday 22nd so I leapt online and amazingly I could get a flight for £305 (including all taxes) - that's only about $500!

I quickly got myself booked and put on the list for the show and 36 hours later I set off! I had to travel via Houston (and return via Newark) so it took me 22 hours door to door but it was well worth it as not only did I see a great show but I also got to meet some lovely people out in California and walk by the Pacific Ocean in about 70 degree temperatures in January!

The venue was in Burbank which is about half an hour north of downtown Los Angeles. As I booked in at the studio on one side of the road they were counting up and saying that they'd be 75 people there tonight. I was given a wristband and went to join the other people who were waiting in Studio 2. Thankfully I met some people that I'd knew so we chatted until they took us across the road to the larger complex of studios.

From having seen Kasim last Summer in Hannover, Germany in front of about 25,000 people and struggling to get somewhere even nearish the front, it was just amazing to wander in and stand wherever we wanted with no pushing and people being friendly!

There was a sign on the door saying that we weren't allowed to take photos or to record the gig and the announcer reiterated it before he introduced The New Cars along the lines of them not having played in 17 years. There were three cameras recording the gig (static ones on either side of the stage and another near the back). Elliot Easton, Todd Rundgren and Kasim Sulton all stood at the front while Prairie Prince and Greg Hawkes were on a very slightly raised riser (maybe 9 inches) at the back.

Because of where one cymbal was placed, I couldn't really see Prairie but his drumming is unmistakeable - I can't really imagine Todd playing without him nowadays!

Greg Hawkes has very white hair and reminded me a lot in looks of Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones but he seemed to enjoy himself on stage far more as he kept smiling and making faces - he was even singing along in parts to himself away from the microphone!

As "somehow"(!) I ended up on the right hand side of the stage, I couldn't see Elliot Easton too well but the thing that did immediately strike me was how well his and Kasim's voices blended together on the background vocals. He's also a very good lead guitarist - once I remembered that it was him playing lead and not Todd!

Todd's lost a lot of weight - he's the slimmest I've seen him since I first started seeing him live in 1999! His voice sounded strong too (the vocals are less demanding than they were on The Liars Tour) and it'll be nice to see Kasim on tour this year when we know the lead singer's voice will be strong every night!

Even fans of The Cars who I've spoken to since agreed at how well Kasim Sulton played tonight! I don't think he played a wrong note all evening and his voice sounded very strong. He looked as though he was enjoying himself on stage too and towards the end of the set a couple of times he and Elliott Easton were obviously chatting and laughing together which was nice to see.

I'll admit that I don't know The Cars music too well (I'm too young to remember the 80s!!!) so I couldn't say for most of the songs whether wrong words were sung or not but after the gig everyone I spoke to who at been at both Friday and tonight's performances said that tonight's was far better and that the band had played well together. There have been posts that Todd forgot the words to some songs on Friday but tonight he seemed to remember them all (other than one song near the end of the set). I did notice however that during Open My Eyes on at least two occasions Elliot Easton came in late twice on two lines (Kasim was singing the background vocals and Elliot didn't start singing until after he heard Kasim - on one occasion he wasn't even at the microphone).

The most well known of The Cars' songs in the UK is Drive. I'm not sure if it was shown over here or not but that song was used to great effect as the background music for a video during Live Aid (they said that it was that song and video which brought in more money that day than anything else as it was so moving). Consequently I was really pleased to hear that Kasim would be singing live on that song tonight and in retrospect he was really the best one to sing the song as the richness in his voice suits it perfectly! I thought that Kasim didn't look totally relaxed when he sang the song tonight but he was word perfect and he received a massive round of applause afterwards! (This was the one song in which Kasim didn't play his KSultonBass and Todd switched to an acoustic guitar.) I did think it was strange that there were no background vocals in this song (I'm not sure if there are on the record or not) but the keyboards are very strong which makes it such an emotive track too.

There was one song near the end of the set (I can't remember which song it was) that unfortunately Kasim didn't sing any background vocals on at all but the thing that struck me more was that, at least for the second half of the song (I didn't notice at the beginning), Kasim just played the top string of his bass and no others!

Afterwards most of the band made themselves available to anyone who wanted autographs and photos - Kasim stayed so long that they started turning out the lights on him!

Roll on The New Cars Tour!!!!

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