When The Cars Concert Tour?
The Cars were among the most successful and significant new wave groups of the late 1970s and early 1980s. A new wave band formed in Boston in 1976, it featured Ric Ocasek on rhythm guitar/vocals, Elliot Easton on lead guitar, Greg Hawkes on keyboards, Benjamin Orr on bass/vocals, and David Robinson on drums. The Cars had several radio hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s such as Just What I Needed, My Best Friends Girl, Good Times Roll, Let's Go, Shake It Up, You Might Think, Magic, Drive, and Hello Again. They are credited for playing catchy guitar pop-rock that paved the way for the new wave of music at the close of the 1970s.
Their first concert tour was in 1977 after releasing their first album titled Cars with hit songs of Just What I Needed and My Best Friends Girl. In 1977 the band continued to tour the East Coast performing in clubs and theaters to increase their popularity with increased stage performances. National success came in 1978 and they toured across the country performing at much larger locations across the United States. This success paved the way for a bigger 1979 tour where The Cars played in arenas and in summer festivals for the first time. It did not take them long to establish themselves as some of the most sought-after performers in concert of the late 1970s.
The band reached its peak of popularity at the beginning of the eighties. They released the album Panorama in 1980 which contains the songs Touch and Go, Dont Tell Me No, and Gimme Some Slack. The supporting concert tour was when The Cars carried on filling up arenas all over America. The Shake It Up tour in 1981 was even grander where the band's funk-inspired title track turned into a hit single reaching the top ten. The subsequent tour, supporting the album Heartbeat City released in 1984 was the pinnacle of commercial success for The Cars band. Fuelled by these mega MTV videos You Might Think It, Magic and Drive, The Cars now got to play their biggest halls, stadiums, and amphitheaters included.
The musical differences and leadership issues became more apparent during the Heartbeat City album and tour. The Cars would not record another album for six years. During this time off, the members engaged in side projects as well as other businesses outside the band. But by the decade's end, they are back in the studio to record another Cars album. 1987s Door to Door had a more serious musical note compared to the first album and it contains the international hit You Are The Girl. The supporting concert tour brought the band back to arenas after several years.
It would be the final time that the bands took a Door to Door tour and would not be repeated for several decades. Conflict and finally the split between band members occurred again in 1988. As for the other band members, Ric Ocasek was particularly active in the following decade, releasing more albums on his own and producing music for Weezer and No Doubt bands. Elliot Easton was also a member of Creedence Clearwater Revisited along with producing his album. Greg Hawkes also toured with Todd Rundgrens Utopia for several years. Without Orr and Robinson, even a Cars reunion did not seem possible in any way. However, when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, the surviving members of the band performed together for the first time in thirty years implying that they could play together again in the future.
That hint became reality when in early 2020 The Cars announced a short string of concert dates for that fall. However, the reunion was not long-lived since Benjamin Orr died in October 2020 from pancreatic cancer at the age of 78. In honor of the deceased member of their band, The Cars called off the rest of their reunion tour. However, the small revival and Rock Hall reunion concert allowed fans to see the living Cars members perform one last time.
The chronology of The Cars’ live appearances from the late 1970s to the 2010s followed the band's timeline. They debuted suddenly in 1977 and rose quickly up the ranks of the consistently awesome live bands of the late Seventies. They went ahead to headline arenas, and later stadiums, through the first half of the 1980s as they rose to stardom. However, internal conflicts within the group caused their first split in 1988 and their absence from the touring scene for quite some time. These short-lived reunion gigs in 2018 and 2020 sealed the great live legacy of one of new wave rock’s most gifted and successful bands, allowing fans to see them perform one last time after being inactive for many years. Unfortunately, with Benjamin's death and no more tours planned for the future, it may be the end of The Cars as a performing band. However, the jukebox-filled spectaculars of the late Seventies and early Eighties are some of the best concert memories of classic rock.
