“It makes me sick just thinking about it”: The Cars’ disastrous first trip to England
Punk has the reputation of destroying many careers overnight. Much like Nirvana would single-handedly kneecap hair metal a decade and a half later, punk sniped the vast majority of those in the hard rock and prog bands colonising the world’s rock scene. However, for every one band left in the dirt by the likes of the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Slits, five more sprung up in their place. Even a band like The Cars, who feel like the complete opposite of punk.
The Cars were a slick, synth driven power pop band in thrall to the likes of the early Beatles, Bowie and The Velvet Underground at their most accessible. While not exactly The Bay City Rollers they were a bunch of clean-cut guys playing some of the most delectably catchy pop-rock songs around and their self-titled debut album still holds up as one of the best rock records of the whole 1970s.
Despite all that, they were as much a part of the punk revolution as anyone else. As a new wave band, they joined the likes of Blondie and Elvis Costello in taking the simplified nature of punk songwriting and dialling down the noise and aggression. While this made them almost an instant success in their home country, they felt like they weren’t going down so well anywhere else.
Namely, in the United Kingdom. Even though the vast majority of their sound was cribbed from ‘British Invasion’ bands like The Kinks and The Who, the fact was that for alternative music fans in Britain in the late 1970s, you were either a punk or part of the problem. Once those Yanks got to our Green and Pleasant land, The Cars felt like they stalled in the worst, most gross way possible.
How did the first UK tour by The Cars go?
In an interview with Music Radar, guitarist Elliot Easton was asked about the worst gigs he had ever played, and of all of them, only one tour came to mind. He said, “The gig that comes to mind for me—and it wasn’t equipment or a malfunction—was during our first tour of England. This was like ’78, and the punk thing was still very popular, and very big.”
He goes on to say, “The audience was into gobbing, which was hocking big loogies at you while you were playing! It was the most disgusting thing I could ever imagine. I was just fucking nauseated by it. I hated it! It started with the Sex Pistols and all that. But when The Cars came, the audiences were still doing it.”
He finishes up by saying “It was just disgusting. To have phlegm on the stage, on your guitar, and your nice clothes… it makes me sick just thinking of it!” You can’t really fault him for that can you? Even if the big irony of it all was that in the punk scene of the time, gobbing was a sign of respect.
As difficult as it is to believe, it’s true. The punk fans were doing it that because they were responding really well to The Cars’ killer pop tunes. However, if you’re not a part of the local culture, and you’re left washing bile and snot out of your hair with bottles of water in the toilet of a dingy Soho bar, you’d be forgiven for thinking differently.
