The New Cars/Peter Frampton

Let me start this review by saying there was not a worse night TNC's could have played here in Cols, at the exact time the concert was starting there was also a high profile OSU game starting so we knew the crowd would be thin. This town bleeds the Buckeyes! The party sponsored by Honda Corp. is an all day affair featuring many concerts throughout the day and several other venues with all sorts of activities to be had, this thing is HUGE. It's exclusively for their employee's but thank goodness I have friends here in town that look out for me and I got 4 passes, what a treat. The concert venue holds about 15,000 but with only that many employee's expected to go to the party on total, and the OSU game running interference I'd estimate there were maybe 3,000 people at the show. Frampton played first, he always puts on a great show, played all the hits and did a song from his upcoming release, a cover of "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden with the vocal parts being covered by Frampton on guitar, interesting! TNC's started the set with "Hello Again" and it flowed effortlessly from there, song after song was really as near flawless as possible, very tight, and the guy's really do seem to be having fun playing together. Was glad to Kasim was still around for this show, he will be sorely missed from this line-up. Todd interspersed a lot of banter about cars and how he felt the need to reference cars even more this night and in his own sly way he mentioned nearly every other automobile manufacturer BUT Honda, ha! you go Todd! Finally giving Honda a little credit when announcing that Greg actually drives one, hahaha! OK, I am not good at set lists but I will say there were no surprises as far as The Cars material goes, and I can tell you what TR songs they did starting with "I Saw The Light" which this mostly indifferent crowd did recognize, then we took a "journey to the dark side" with a killer version of "Black Maria", this was the highlight of the night for me, just killer. Then a fun version of "Bang On The Drum" which started out with all the band members out front playing assorted "island" instruments then mid song they all grabbed their spots back with guitars etc. and finished "Bang" with a bang, great idea guy's! I took the time to look around at the crowd during the TR material and I did notice a few old timers like me that knew the words to all of it, guess there are a few TR fan's working at the Honda plant then!LOL! What a great show and a great surprise, thanks Honda and a big thanks to The New Cars!