You Asked For It......

After receiving a few (okay 3) emails from some of my shy readers who refuse to leave their published comments and one special request by Sassy Blondie in the comments section, my arm is successfully twisted. To my surprise, y'all actually wanted to see more pictures of The New Cars show I saw last Friday night. There's not much more I like to do than talk about my Todd and his new role as lead of The New Cars, singing not only classic songs like "Hello Again," "My Best Friend's Girl," "Candy-O," "Moving In Stereo," along with more than I can possibly recall right this second, but they are also bringin' it on some new songs, written in the Cars' 80's style. So here you have it - ladies and gentlemen, The New Cars!!!

I love this picture of Todd in darkness with a single spotlight on him. I think he was singing "Drive" here, usually sung by Kasim when he's not off gallivanting in Europe with Meat Loaf.

Awwwwwww, this one's cool with the colored lights. Love me some Todd. Can ya guess?

This lefty is Elliot Easton - one of the original members from way back. After he broke his collarbone last summer in a close-shave bus incident, he actually played a couple of shows before they pulled the band off the road so he could have surgery. They hit the road again after a few weeks and he played like nothing had ever happened. Now, if only my elbow would bounce back that well....

If you've ever attended a sporting event (usually baseball), you have probably heard a song that goes "I don't want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day...." No, it wasn't a Cars song. Guess again. I'll wait. ...... It is a Todd song. Uh huh. This is the band playing it on ukuleles and conga, Hawaiian style.

Todd wails it a little later on in the show. Red is a good color on him, donchathink?

This is Atom Ellis, filling in for Kasim, quite well, thankyouverymuch. It's been said he looks quite a bit like original Cars member Benjamin Orr....and he does. Sorry the pic is so dark. As he said to me after the show "Yeah, I step in wherever I'm needed." ....and my mind went off to a dirty place.

Here is a laminated sign we got from a shuttle bus that moved people from the casino/hotel to the performance arena. It makes me mad that they air-brushed Kasim's image from the promo photo, but the least they could have done was photoshop Atom's picture into it. No worries, Atom did a quick scribble of himself, carefully avoiding where Prairie Prince had signed previously. Also - Todd's autograph is on the left side, but it's in ball-point - so you need to take my word for it.

I just realized I haven't posted any close-ups of Prairie Prince (drummer) or Greg Hawkes (keyboards), but let me brag here for a second - I was too close to the stage to see over the monitors, so my pics of them are weird. But they're in the pictures from the other day's posting.


And......this is my prized vintage handbill from a 1978 Utopia show in Austin. Yeah, I was just a kid then, but I had great taste in music. 1978 was when I first saw Todd live (at the Dallas show) with Kasim playing bass. And we know where that's led. Check out the ticket price: $6.00!!! The good ole days! When Todd was signing this, he said "I see Kasim's been here already". Yeah, catch up, Todd.



I think that's enough for y'all. Believe me, I could go on and on, but it might be akin to having to sit through hours of someone photos of their baby. You can thank me later.