Ray Davies

Appearing onstage wearing a suit and bright white trainers, Ray Davies looks as sprightly in his sixties as he did in the sixties. Starting with just himself on guitar, and gradually other band members appear onstage. I thought this would be an acoustic set but he has some talented musicians here that really add to the sound.

‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’ is the first song tonight, followed by ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone’ and the classic ‘Til The End Of The Day’. As it is a seated venue (and to be fair the crowd are not as young as they used to be) the crowd reactions are quite suppressed.

More recent songs like ‘After The Fall’ from Davies’ last solo album ‘Other People’s Lives’ are less well received. It’s not until he mentions the last time he played York in 2005, and starts to play ‘A Well Respected Man’ that the crowd start to warm up.

Joking about his age gets a sympathetic laugh as he says “One good thing about doing this for so long is you can sit down”, perching ‘Westlife-style’ on a stool. As it makes an embarrassing noise, he jokes that he’s being sabotaged; “Farting stools, gay nephews, rumours of crew on tour buses...”

A bit of country pops up now in ‘Next-Door Neighbour’, about the lives of Mr Brown, Mr Jones and Mr Smith behind closed doors. ‘The Tourist' (from the 2005 four-track EP of the same name) is a funny track, about the “Barmy Army” booze-hounds abroad. There are a lot of nods to America, as Davies has spent a lot of time there, both with The Kinks and alone.

Back to some more well-known tunes for ‘Celluloid Heroes’ (he relates the song to how you can “walk all over the stars on the path at Sunset Boulevard”). ‘20th Century Man’ was “written from the arsehole of the world”. He promises to play more classics after the encore.

And sure he does. ‘Come Dancing’, Ray jokes, “inspired the show Strictly Come Dancing”. Dedicating the next track to an ill friend, ‘Village Green’ is a well written observation on normal everyday folk in a small community.

His guitarist for the evening, a rocking lad called Milton (bit of a mis-match, that name and his talent) from Scarborough, gets to play on an original Gibson guitar from back in The Kinks heyday, to get that authentic sound. The guitar is said to be older than Milton!

‘Sunny Afternoon’ really opens up the crowd, as does ‘Dead End Street’ (Davies adds a bit of ‘skat’ vocals to the end to catch out those singing along, which works!). The distinctive sliding chords of ‘Tired Of Waiting For You’ get some people on the front row dancing, causing many others to stand too, delighting Davies. The song is dedicated to Dave, Mick and Pete, “even if they do slag me off”.

‘Set Me Free’ comes before we are told how the power chords to a certain hit were created by the younger Dave Davies. “Record producers thought it sounded like a barking dog!” ‘All Day And All Of The Night’ takes us up to the encore, after which we get the thoughtful ode to the pressures of stardom for a young “Dave The Rave” in ‘A Long Way From Home’, followed by ‘The Getaway (Lonesome Train)’.

Speaking of his time living in America he tells us how his neighbours would talk about him, saying he’s a handsome, strapping fellow but he wrote that song, so they would not associate with him! The song they speak of is my favourite anthem, ‘Lola’.

After a second encore we are treated to ‘Thank You For The Days’ and finally ‘You Really Got Me’. A nostalgic night in all to see a legend perform. His guitar changes were a little unnecessary all the time, and the green fender sounds well out of tune, but the guy has still got it, jumping in the air and lapping up the attention.

FUTURE GIGS

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