A total of 26 live performances trace The Cars’ development, from their late 70s Boston new wave beginnings to their mid-80s stadium pomp, covering most of their career highs. Interspersed with some intermittently-amusing Tap-ish backstage larks and various interviews cut-and-pasted in between the performances are a genuine document of the times, which now seem impossibly distant. The dichotomy between Ric Ocasek’s angular melodic pop and Benjamin Orr’s more mainstream songs is evident in their alternation throughout the running order, while lots of unintentional hilarity is to be had from the band’s stylistic faux-pas (in particular those of �ber-nerd synth player Greg Hawkes).
Committed Autophiles will be thrilled skinny, but for the casual observer the backstage ‘antics’ could get a little wearing. No complaints about the music, though, although surely some of these performances have been sonically enhanced. Not that that’s a crime, of course.
