Ray Davies
The Wiltern
Los Angeles, CA
March 28, 2008
By Victoria Joyce
(SugarBuzz Hollywood)
SugarBuzz Magazine
Don’t like corporate rock concerts much any more. It’s gotta be somebody pretty special to go through the airport-like security and the shameless barrage of corporate logos.
This concert added a new dimension of marketable space. A big screen above the stage with a phone number and a text code to enable the audience to see their text messages blown up real big.
Oh, good. Messages read; “Todd you rock,” “Hey Carla over here” and “Cindy, I love you” etc. Strictly bonehead. Then, at last, something appropriate. “God Save the Kinks” and a little later, “I Wish I Could be Like David Watts.”
Yes, that some one special playing here tonight is Ray Davies, founder of the Kinks. Doing his solo thing and hitting LA for the second time in two years. New release too, his second solo; “Working Man’s Café” is getting great buzz.
While Ray was in town, he did an NPR DJ thing; “All Songs Considered.” Cute. Chuck Berry and old blues, the stuff of the British Invasion. Greatest gift anyone’s ever given or got is the UK giving the US it’s own music back.
Back on the stage, New Orleans Zydeco music was jangling through the cavernous Wiltern Theater pre-set. This place is past beautiful and an historical landmark. A gorgeous cavernous deco structure, tall and spikey, all copper-oxide green, like the Emerald City of Oz. Amazing but not great acoustics. Boomy sound.
Security at the door got it wrong when they told us there would be an opening band. There wasn’t. Ray Davies came out alone, shuffled a few steps and the house roared. Looking good and still lanky, jumping and running in place, Ray keeps fit.
Davies opened with a solo on “I’m Not Like Everybody Else.” We swooned and some screamed. The back up band joined in one instrument at a time. “Where Did All the Good Times Gone,” had us doubled up and unable to breathe. After all, it is a perfect song.
Ray was goofing with the his band and teased with just a bit from “Ape Man,” his song about the environment written before it was so fashionable and written before they were born. Sheesh.
Ray got everyone singing with “Well Respected Man” and sang some newer stuff, “My Neighbor” and “The Tourist” from his New Orleans chapter. Famous for songs about about places on the map, Ray Davies takes you places; Muswell Hill, New Orleans, New York, London and the bridges, boulevards and gardens therein. Glorious narratives that take you on journeys.
“I can’t play this town without playing this song,” with another joke about his backup band issuing a $10 fine when he mentions his old band by name. When Ray says “The Kinks,” people scream. Of course they do. Playing “Celluloid Heroes” to a Hollywood audience evoked a soft ‘ahhhhhh’ from all 2000+ in the house.
If Hollywood had a national anthem, this would be it. “Everybody’s a dreamer, everybody’s a star.” Then down the list; Greta Garbo, Rudolf Valentino, Bela Lugosi and Bette Davis. In tonight’s abbreviated version (original is 6:22) he left out the bit about ‘stamping on Mickey Rooney.”
You can’t walk down that street and step on those stars without hearing this song in your head. “Some that you recognize, some you that hardly ever heard of.” This evening’s show had emphasis on the wicked double ending of “fame walks hand in hand with failure down Hollywood Boulevard” and ‘celluloid heroes’ being pain-free and immortal. Oh, yeah.
A songwriter’s songwriter, Rays Davies stuff is the formula for the ultimate hip. Cool indie film, “Darjeeling Express” has two gems that open and close the film; “Yesterday” and “Powerman.” Did you watch the Superbowl this year? Break through commercial was from Nike. Quick cuts of pretty people with a Kinks soundtrack, “Everybody’s A Star.”
Evidenced by tonight’s LA audience, Ray Davies sets an artistic standard. Definitely the demographic of this bunch are the hip power brokers of La La Land; creative directors, film execs and industry types. The drive back to Malibu must have been long.
The rumor is true. Ray says there may be a Kinks reunion. Dave might go for it if the deal is right. Years ago, on the Today Show Ray commented on the famous fights with is brother. “They say you shouldn’t go into business with members of your family. I wonder how the Queen manages.”
How, indeed.
http://www.myspace.com/raydaviesofficial
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89149374