The Cars-Live (2000) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Interviews-Cast-The Cars Audio Bites-Rhino Records CD Sampler
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	46:19 (Case: 93)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Rhino Home Video Warner Vision	Starring	Ric Ocasek Elliot Easton David Robinson Ben Orr Greg Hawkes
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Ric Ocasek

    This DVD features a rare live recording of The Cars, and probably the only live recording of their performance outside the US. It was shot live for the Musikladen TV show at the Radio Bremen studios and consists of 11 songs in a 45 minute set. No, you won't find Drive on this recording - although probably their best known single, irrevocably linked with the Live Aid project, this came some 5 years later. There are classics from their first album, though, like the mechanistic Good Times Roll, My Best Friend's Girl (probably the nearest The Cars came to a romantic song), the rare gem Take What You Want and a fitting finale in Just What I Needed. Another unusual feature of the band is that they were able to reproduce live a very similar sound to their studio recordings, which for me is an essential feature of music - as opposed to synthesised sound. It's a great performance, suitably laid back and cool - good-looking blonde Ben Orr in his tight black leather trousers acts as band front man, bass player and second to Ocasek's lead vocals. Ocasek towers over the set, impassive, more cool, laid-back and drier in delivery than even Lou Reed. Lead guitarist Elliot Easton looks almost respectable and like he's just escaped from his day-time job at a bank and keyboard player Greg Hawkes looks like he'd be more at home in Bill Gates' garage cobbling together silicon and software. Anyway - they play, sing and deliver the sonic goods with professionalism and aplomb.

    Where are they now? Well, they gathered together in 2000 for a reunion interview recorded for this DVD release - it took me a little while to work out who was who and correlate appearances past and present. Ocasek, Orr and Easton have all released solo albums and Ocasek and Easton also turned to record production. Sadly Benjamin Orr succumbed to cancer shortly after this interview and Ocasek continues to write songs and record.

Video

    The video is as we'd expect from a 70s TV video recording complete with soft, oversaturated colours and video flares from the CRT cameras. Sadly, the whole video feature is bedevilled by microphony and whilst this varies in intensity it is endemic throughout the feature.

    In keeping with its TV origins and intended American market, the aspect ratio is 1.33:1 and the transfer is in NTSC format

    Overall focus is soft, mostly a limitation of 70's video technology although I suspect video compression plays a part in this - the disc is a DVD-9 but only one layer is used for the concert video recording. The studio is fairly dimly lit and shadow detail is lacking though our interest in the audience is limited. There was no low level noise.

    The colours are somewhat oversaturated ad the set lighting is mostly drenched in unimaginative red floodlight.

    There's some Gibb's effect around the opening titles and mild pixelization in some of the plain backdrops - these are not intrusive. Aliasing is just about non-existent which is one benefit of the soft focus. There are no video tape artefacts to be seen.

    The only subtitles are the titles which are burned, in yellow, into the start of each song and two instances of band credits.

    Although the disc is dual layered the feature is on layer 0 and the interview is on layer 1 so there is no RSDL transition point.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Partly due to the excellent miking technique of the performers, particularly Ocasek, and professional recording of the studio, dialogue is very clear with no problem in making out lyrics if that's important to you!

    There were no obvious problems with audio or vocal sync.

    The quality of the music is self evident by the band's album sales and for those listening to music of the day it came as welcome relief to the tidal waves of Philly, funky, disco garbage that were swamping the music scene at the time - maybe we need the same today to wash away the ravages of rap.

   I had to stick my ear up to the surrounds to check that the rear channels were encoded - there's a much quieter softer version of the front mains present which I guess adds subliminally to the ambience. There is nothing to draw your attention to the surrounds though - which is better than having audience noise pollution bugging you from behind.

    The subwoofer happily gurgled and hummed away to itself throughout the feature nicely bottoming out the bass guitar lines.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Featurette - Band interview

Rhino record sampler

    The video is marred throughout the transfer and about the standard we'd expect from VHS tape.

    The audio quality is good, although a good quality LPCM stereo track would have probably been better as the surrounds are hardly used.

    The single extra is an enjoyable and informative interview with the band - much more could have been included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall