It’s a shame about Ray!  I’ve never ever left a gig at the interval but after an hour of under-rehearsed pub rock it was time to catch the early train home…

Firstly the sound was terrible – you could hardly decipher Davies’ words at all unless you already knew them from the cheap(ish) seats in the upper tiers of the Royal Albert Hall. 

Secondly, the format was all wrong – despite this gig being billed as having no support, we had a handful of songs from a distinctly average acoustic songwriter then a 10 minute break before Ray and his three-piece band entered with typically shambolic abandon.  There was about 30 minutes of turgid rock, 20 slightly better acoustic minutes then inexplicably, a 20 minute break – at 9.40!  At least it gave us the chance to leave early though…

Thirdly and most disappointingly of all was the performance of the man himself and his band.  Despite the vastness of the venue (and the price of the tickets), there were no keyboards and no backing vocals – just a very basic four-piece band.  How could Davies possibly re-create the magic of his 60s recordings – he couldn’t of course and seemed to play a disproportionate amount of sub-heavy rock material from his latter years.  Even when he did play the classics they were largely trashed like Bob Dylan on a very bad night.  Singing the third verse twice instead of the second on A Well Respected Man isn’t clever – it’s unbelievably shoddy.

Things got slightly better when the bassist and drummer left the stage for Ray and his guitarist to play a few songs acoustically.  At least the first song Oklahoma USA clearly meant something to him.  This was followed by a quite beautiful, moving version of Village Green but, instead of finishing the song to deserved applause, the duo segued it into a half-hearted, sloppy Picture Book.  Sunny Afternoon was better but was followed by a heavy-handed Dead End Street for which the two extra musicians inexplicably reappeared for the last minute before all four band members left the stage.

Ray Davies is a legend and the Village Green Preservation Society LP will make it into my Top 20 Albums List later this year.  I was hoping that this gig would signal a deserved comeback along the lines of those made in recent years by other 60s heroes such as Brian Wilson and Arthur Lee of Love.  What we got instead was mostly under-rehearsed, shambolic pub rock with a similar sound quality to boot.  Probably the worst gig I’ve ever been to by a professional musician.
3.10.05