Ray Davies ~ 2006 March 28 ~ Orpheum Theater, Boston, MA
Set List
I'm Not Like Everybody Else - Where Have All the Good Times Gone - Till the End of the Day - After the Fall - Twentieth Century Man - Oklahoma USA - Village Green - Picture Book - Animal Farm - Johnny Thunder - Sunny Afternoon - Dead End Street - Next Door Neighbor - Creatures of Little Faith - Over My Head - The Tourist - Low Budget ... intermission ... Stand Up Comic - Morning After - Harry Rag {short fragment} - Long Way From Home - Lonesome Train - Tired of Waiting - Set Me Free - All Day and All of the Night ... encore ... You Really Got Me - Lola
Review
Ray Davies of The Kinks played a show with a band that was not The Kinks. That pretty much sums up in one sentence what was both good and bad about this show.
Any komment on a performance by Ray Davies this year must be prefaced with a note that Ray suffered a gunshot wound while trying to run down a thief in New Orleans two years ago, and he has shown both courage and determination to push on with both his recording and performing career when he is clearly not 100% physically. Another thought that must be kept in mind is that Ray is touring with a band that is not The Kinks for the first time, stepping out from his previous solo semi-acoustic performances when he was accompanied by just one guitarist.
For this long-time Kinks fan who has also seen Dave Davies live 54 times, there were aspects of this show that displeased me, but read on and I'll let you know what was really great about the show. The lead guitarist, Mark Johns, while a technically skilled player, was stiff and undemonstrative on stage. One suspects when Ray hired him he was told to just play and not emote. But this was my first time seeing Ray with a band that wasn't The Kinks; in other words, this was my first time seeing Ray with an electric lead sideman who wasn't Dave Davies, and well, the poor guy is just going to suffer in the comparison no matter who he is and how great a player he is.
But this wasn't a Kinks show, and it also wasn't a Ray Davies solo show ("Storyteller" and subsequent solo tours), and it's just going to take this long-time Kinks fan some time to get over seeing Ray with a guitarist who isn't Dave.
Ray started the show on stage by himself leading audience singalongs of "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" and "Where Have All the Good Times Gone." He started the show wearing a gray suit with a red shirt, but changed a few times. Once the band joined in, the rocking numbers started with "Till the End of the Day." He played a well-chosen selection of beloved Kinks songs and songs from his recent solo albums. Ray told a heartfelt story about one of his sisters using motion pictures to escape from her daily life, and then sang "Oklahoma USA," on which song the keyboard player used an accordion.
Ray called The Kinks' beloved The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society "one of the least successful albums of all time." Then he and his guitarist sat down and played a lovely acoustic mini-set of tunes from that album: "Picture Book" (featuring some nice country guitar from Mark Johns), "Animal Farm," and "Johnny Thunder." They followed this with "Sunny Afternoon" (another major singalong), which featured a nice little acoustic rave-up.
The full band returned, Ray stepped off stage to change to a white shirt. A few songs from Ray's solo albums followed, with vocal help from a female vocalist on "Over My Head." Ray used several different guitars, including a green Ovation and a beige acoustic guitar, but as is his custom when he plays with a band, he mostly used the guitar as a prop. During "The Tourist" the band slumped into an extensive jam while Ray was off stage changing his clothes. When he came back on stage the crowd was treated to a delightfully Kink-like "Low Budget"; Ray flounced and pranced around the stage, made expressive hand gestures, and leared good-naturedly at the audience. It was fantastic to see this kind of energy.
Then they took an intermission, which at the time seemed like a momentum killer after the excitement of "Low Budget," but it did allow the band to play a good long show. For the second act, Ray was dressed in a dark suit with lapel decorations. For this fan, the question with Ray is he even going to mention Dave, and if he does, is he going to be nice. This time he was nice. He dedicated "Long Way From Home" to his brother. The female singer (I regret not catching her name during the band intros) came back on stage and supplied Dave's vocal parts on this song.
The show started to pick up steam and ended with five Kinks blockbusters. "Tired of Waiting" featured a nice falsetto section from Ray, followed by "Set Me Free." Ray told a story of how Dave's early pioneering guitar sound was described as sounding like a "barking dog" by one record company exec who had no clue. Then the song choice was "All Day and All of the Night" (complete with the silly Harry Belafonte "way-oh" section that I always hated at Kinks koncerts).
The encore started with the always thrilling story of how Dave Davies transformed Ray's little slow blues "You Really Got Me" into the song that created hard rock and heavy metal. Ray played the opening chords himself, then changed guitars in mid-song to a green Fender. He stepped briefly off stage and returned with a goofy "tourist" hat (a nod to his recent solo EP The Tourist), but then the final encore song (what else could it be?) was the crowd-pleasing "Lola."
More Davies brothers
Here is a page with a handy list of links to all pages on this website with Ray, Dave, or other Kink kontent.