Ray Davies, The 88 at The Grove, Anaheim, CA [03.24.10]
Ray Davies, The 88 at the Grove, Anaheim, CA [03.24.10]
1) This Is Where I Belong
2) I Need You
3) Where Have All The Good Times Gone?
4) In A Moment
5) Victoria
6) 20th Century Man
7) The Tourist
8) Apeman
9) Two Sisters
10) The Hard Way
11) See My Friends
12) I’m Not Like Everybody Else
13) Nothing In The World Can Stop Me From Worrying About That Girl
14) Too Much On My Mind
15) A Well Respected Man
16) Sunny Afternoon
17) Postcard From London
18) Tired Of Waiting
19) Set Me Free
20) All Day And All Night
21) You Really Got Me
22) David Watts
23) Celluloid Heroes
24) Low Budget
25) Lola
Ray Davies in Anaheim at The Grove, a fairly new venue. This is third time that I have seen Mister Davies since July 2006…and for this concert he did not sport a band of his own. The format was acoustic and intimate with second guitarist Bill Shanley (a superb musician who looks a lot like fellow Irishman Bill Murray by the way) and the program resembled the Storyteller format to a degree but a good deal of the performance resembled a good ‘ole knees up at the local pub with Ray falling back on his impeccable back catalog of endless classics to draw upon from his formidable Kinks days. He performed only one song each from his two most recent solo LPs and performed a brief four song set that he dubbed Ray’s Songs That Were Made Into Movies, selecting four tracks (songs 12-15) that had been featured in The Sopranos, Rushmore, The American Friend and Juno respectively. Before he performed The Tourist from the excellent Other People’s Lives album he spoke for a few minutes about a neighbor of his down in New Orleans “that used to bring him cakes and things, and occasionally a guitar to play” and he then lamented the passing of his friend and neighbor Alex Chilton. Damn, Ray had to bring up Alex. Three songs later after performing The Hard Way he evoked Doug Fieger of The Knack who had covered The Hard Way on the second Knack LP …But The Little Girls Understand. Fieger passed away on Valentine’s Day and Alex Chilton passed away on St. Patrick’s Day…
In spite of encroaching mortality it was all-in-all a fantastic performance by Ray and Bill Shanley. Opening act The 88s turned in a tough, tight, taut opening set and then had the privilege of backing up Ray for the last five numbers of the night; it was the best of both worlds: Ray in pub sing-along mode with a nice, intimate set of stories and tunes and a rockin’ raucous ending to the show that was a nice dichotomy of fireworks after a candle lit dinner. What a man. What a songbook. Is there any finer songwriter to come out of the 1960s who is still writing songs of the same caliber as their finest work? Who? Bob Dylan? Maybe. Paul McCartney? I don’t think so. Pete Townshend? Probably. Who else is there?
Thanks Ray.
The Gig List | admin March 26, 2010 | 
Comments Off
