Candy-O Tribute to the Cars Cruises into Sin City!

The Candy-O Cars Tribute played the Cover All Lounge at Arizona Charlie’s Decatur on Saturday, September 26, 2026.

The Cars, out of the Boston area, burst onto the scene in the late 70s with a sound that fused rock, pop, and new wave sounds like no other band. The group worked with some of the finest producers in the business, including Roy Thomas Baker and Robert John “Mutt” Lange, with their songs appearing in countless television shows, adverts, and films. Even after the deaths of frontmen Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr, their music lives on.

Candy-O, named for the band’s second album, is a tribute to the Cars that’s been doing their thing for over 25 years! The band had previously played in the Vegas Valley during a car show in Downtown Henderson in 2023, which I attended. It’s been three years, but on Saturday night, we finally got Candy-O back in the Vegas Valley, this time playing Arizona Charlie’s on Decatur.

The Cover All Lounge is a space in the corner of the Arizona Charlie’s building, though unfortunately not its own separate room. Formerly known as Naughty Ladies Saloon, this space features tables and chairs, a bar, and a fairly low-to-the-ground stage with dance floor. The ventilation in this part of the building has been improved, but the cigarette smoke is still an issue, and is certainly the one argument against me regularly attending shows here. This should be a separate closed off room in which smoking is prohibited; improving the ventilation only does so much. That said, it’s an intimate space and the stage and atmosphere are quite nice.

I do have to get one bit of unpleasantness out of the way before moving on with the actual review. This show was advertised as having an “8:00 PM sharp” start time. Needless to say, I was hurrying to the venue to ensure I wouldn’t miss the gig… but the show didn’t start until nearly 8:40! Apparently there were some issues with a prize drawing and the band was told they couldn’t start until later than they’d advertised. I can understand if a show starts 5-10 minutes late due to technical problems, but this is unacceptable. It isn’t the first time shows at Arizona Charlie’s/Cover All Lounge have started excessively late, either. Again, however, I want to stress that this was the venue’s fault, NOT the band!

Fortunately, as soon as Candy-O hit the stage, they quickly proved they were more than capable of keeping these classic hits alive. Brenton Worthy and company were indeed worthy, cruising through an amazing setlist of Cars classics spanning the band’s classic decade worth of albums. The set, unsurprisingly, including classic fare like “Good Times Roll,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight,” “It’s All I Can Do,” “Drive,” “Hello Again,” “Moving in Stereo” (which will forever be known for its appearance during an iconic scene in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH), and “Dangerous Type,” to name a few. It’s easy to forget just how many hit songs (singles and non-singles alike) the Cars had in their heyday, but this night was a great refresher course. Even a few deep cuts got tossed into the mix, including “Cruiser” from 1981’s SHAKE IT UP album, and “Nightspots” from 1979’s CANDY-O.

I’m not old enough to have seen the Cars in concert back in the day, so I can’t speak for how accurately watching Candy-O represents what seeing the real band would’ve been like. But what I can say is that these guys have amazing musicianship and definitely have a respect for the material at hand. I especially appreciate how, like the real band, they have a guitarist/vocalist (the Ric Ocasek role) and a bassist/vocalist (the Benjamin Orr role), alternating as needed for select tracks, just like the real band did back in the day, instead of just letting one person do all the vocals. Everyone else in the band did a superb job as well, from the rhythm section to the keyboards. That these guys don’t get to play Vegas more often is absolutely criminal, and I’m hoping we won’t have to wait another three years before their next performance!

All in all, aside from the excruciatingly late start time (again, not the band’s fault) this was a damn good night of Cars music. I’d love to see these guys break out deep cuts like “Don’t Tell Me No” and “Stranger Eyes” (the latter of which appeared in the original trailers for TOP GUN but not the film itself), as well as some tunes from the members’ respective solo albums eventually, but I don’t think any Cars fan will argue with the fact that this was a great setlist and an equally fantastic performance from a talented quintet of musicians.

No fan of the Cars should pass up a chance to see Candy-O paying homage to these classic hits and deep cuts alike.