Ray Davies 2006-07-21
Gypsy Tea Room (Ballroom), Dallas, TX
Set 1
I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Where Have All the Good Times Gone
Till the End of the Day
After The Fall
All She Wrote
Creatures Of Little Faith
Over My Head
Run Away from Time
The Tourist
All Day and All of the Night
A Long Way From Home
The Getaway (Lonesome Train)
You Really Got Me
Low Budget
Where Have All the Good Times Gone
Till the End of the Day
After The Fall
All She Wrote
Creatures Of Little Faith
Over My Head
Run Away from Time
The Tourist
All Day and All of the Night
A Long Way From Home
The Getaway (Lonesome Train)
You Really Got Me
Low Budget
Set 2
Set 3
Comment
12:42 PM CDT on Monday, July 24, 2006
By TOM MAURSTAD / The Dallas Morning News
Normally, you'd expect modest circumstances when seeing a singer-songwriter touring to support his first solo album. In that context, a bar and performance space like Gypsy Tea Room and an audience of a few hundred seems completely appropriate for the occasion.
But normal isn't a word readily conjured by Ray Davies, former Kinks frontman and rock legend, and so these modest circumstances couldn't help but feel slightly surreal on Friday night. That's a point he hammered home with his opener, the Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else."
The song is an archetypal rock anthem, on par with the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" or the Who's "My Generation." But instead of the usual atmosphere you associate with the triumphant return of a rock classic – a sold-out stadium, a jampacked arena – Mr. Davies uncorked his anthem from the center of a small stage tucked in the corner of a club that wasn't even half full.
If that sounds a bit dreary or deflated, it was, in fact, anything but.
Backed by a four-piece band and wearing a sport coat that he soon enough shed, Mr. Davies was a charming and chatty host between songs. And during the songs he ranged back and forth between an ageless idol, kicking and contorting and slashing at his guitar, and an elder storyteller, spinning webs of words and melody into striking vignettes of love and loss, isolation and embrace.
Here's another "normal" expectation that Mr. Davies' performance cut against: With the evening's setup – rock legend appearing in support of a new album before an audience of the good old days devoted – you would expect a night of highs and lows, with the highs being the ecstatic reception greeting every old song and the lows being the polite endurance of every new one.
And, sure enough, when Mr. Davies followed the opening Kinks song with two more – "Where Have All the Good Times Gone?" and "Till the End of the Day" – it was sustained, singalong pandemonium. Far from transforming into a field of statues when he then strapped on an acoustic guitar and segued into a set of songs from his new album, Other People's Lives (even he couldn't help but laugh when he mentioned it as his "first solo album"), the audience greeted the new material with either rapt attention or let's-dance enthusiasm. That is, in a sign-of-the-times sight, when they weren't holding up cellphones to take pictures or video.
By the end of the show, he had taken the club through a 50-minute set ending with a rollicking version of "All Day and All of the Night" and two encores, the first climaxing with "You Really Got Me" and the second consisting of the single-song closer, "Low Budget." Along the way, he played the perfect host sharing amusing anecdotes (for instance, how Decca executives dismissed the Kinks' first recordings because the guitar sounded like a barking dog – "Yeah, but what a great bark").
What becomes a legend most? On this night, a small club and an intimate crowd did the trick.
By TOM MAURSTAD / The Dallas Morning News
Normally, you'd expect modest circumstances when seeing a singer-songwriter touring to support his first solo album. In that context, a bar and performance space like Gypsy Tea Room and an audience of a few hundred seems completely appropriate for the occasion.
But normal isn't a word readily conjured by Ray Davies, former Kinks frontman and rock legend, and so these modest circumstances couldn't help but feel slightly surreal on Friday night. That's a point he hammered home with his opener, the Kinks' "I'm Not Like Everybody Else."
The song is an archetypal rock anthem, on par with the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" or the Who's "My Generation." But instead of the usual atmosphere you associate with the triumphant return of a rock classic – a sold-out stadium, a jampacked arena – Mr. Davies uncorked his anthem from the center of a small stage tucked in the corner of a club that wasn't even half full.
If that sounds a bit dreary or deflated, it was, in fact, anything but.
Backed by a four-piece band and wearing a sport coat that he soon enough shed, Mr. Davies was a charming and chatty host between songs. And during the songs he ranged back and forth between an ageless idol, kicking and contorting and slashing at his guitar, and an elder storyteller, spinning webs of words and melody into striking vignettes of love and loss, isolation and embrace.
Here's another "normal" expectation that Mr. Davies' performance cut against: With the evening's setup – rock legend appearing in support of a new album before an audience of the good old days devoted – you would expect a night of highs and lows, with the highs being the ecstatic reception greeting every old song and the lows being the polite endurance of every new one.
And, sure enough, when Mr. Davies followed the opening Kinks song with two more – "Where Have All the Good Times Gone?" and "Till the End of the Day" – it was sustained, singalong pandemonium. Far from transforming into a field of statues when he then strapped on an acoustic guitar and segued into a set of songs from his new album, Other People's Lives (even he couldn't help but laugh when he mentioned it as his "first solo album"), the audience greeted the new material with either rapt attention or let's-dance enthusiasm. That is, in a sign-of-the-times sight, when they weren't holding up cellphones to take pictures or video.
By the end of the show, he had taken the club through a 50-minute set ending with a rollicking version of "All Day and All of the Night" and two encores, the first climaxing with "You Really Got Me" and the second consisting of the single-song closer, "Low Budget." Along the way, he played the perfect host sharing amusing anecdotes (for instance, how Decca executives dismissed the Kinks' first recordings because the guitar sounded like a barking dog – "Yeah, but what a great bark").
What becomes a legend most? On this night, a small club and an intimate crowd did the trick.
Sources
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Created At
Sat Sep 02 2006 13:25:37 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Updated At
Sat Sep 02 2006 13:25:37 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
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