{"id":799486,"date":"2019-09-16T02:07:46","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T08:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=884890"},"modified":"2019-09-16T02:07:46","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T08:07:46","slug":"flashback-the-cars-play-for-last-time-at-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/flashback-the-cars-play-for-last-time-at-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: The Cars Play For Last Time at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Ric Ocasek<\/a> learned the Cars<\/a> were finally entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in December 2017\u201414 years after they were first eligible\u2014he was overjoyed. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a wonderful feeling to be accepted by peers,\u201d said the singer,<\/a> who was found dead in his New York townhouse<\/a> on September 15th. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a big thing for me and the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, the Cars hadn\u2019t performed since a quick 12-date reunion tour in 2011 to support their comeback record Move Like This<\/em>. It was their only activity since breaking up in 1987, and Ocasek insisted it be as brief as possible. \u201cI\u2019ve always been more of a songwriter than a performer,\u201d he told Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do things like, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s do some casinos and some boats.\u2019 I didn\u2019t want to get into that. That\u2019s just a different reason to do it. That\u2019s really just being mechanical and playing your songs for whatever it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Hall of Fame, however, he was willing to put those feelings aside for a four-song set that included \u201cMy Best Friend\u2019s Girl,\u201d \u201cYou Might Think,\u201d \u201cMoving in Stereo\u201d and \u201cJust What I Needed.\u201d Weezer bassist Scott Shriner sat in with the band to fill the hole left by the late Benjamin Orr. Here\u2019s video of the last song, which wound up being the last time the Cars played together before Ocasek\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

They were incredible that night and they gave fans hope that perhaps it would lead to more band activity in the future. \u201cMaybe this will be a good reason to do it again, though I really miss Ben as part of the thing,\u201d Ocasek said. \u201cAs much as I want it to be the Cars and I love everyone so much in the Cars, without him it just feels different. It feels different.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cars were able to still be a credible version of the group without Benjamin Orr, but without Ocasek now it would be impossible. (Yes, guitarist Elliot Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes did tour with Todd Rundgren as the New Cars in 2006, but it only proved that it simply cannot work without one of the two singers.) The sudden loss of Ocasek is a shocking tragedy, but at least the Hall of Fame gave him the opportunity to end his band on a very high note. When the group got in, he did suspect it might be their final hurrah.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a good cap on the bottle,\u201d Ocasek told Rolling Stone.<\/em> \u201cI thought [to myself], \u2018I kind of started playing here and I could stop playing here, in Cleveland. This could be the bookends. One guy on a guitar playing bad songs and then I\u2019m in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 45 years later.\u2019 It\u2019s kind of weird because it\u2019s like a lifetime. It is a lifetime. I had three families during that time. They are like lives that go by and millions of people and things and artists and writers and business people and fans\u2026It\u2019s a lot of stuff. It\u2019s been a pretty eventful life, I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Ric Ocasek learned the Cars were finally entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in December 2017\u201414 years after they were first eligible\u2014he was overjoyed. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a wonderful feeling to be accepted by peers,\u201d said the singer, who was found dead in his New York townhouse on September 15th. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-799486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 15:04:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}