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I’ll never forget the first time I knowingly heard The Kinks. I was alone at my uncle’s place all day – I believe I was staying there briefly – and boredom led me to sift through their records. The closest my uncle ever got to rock music was Johnny Cash but his wife Wenda was a whole different story; she was a rock and roller through-and-through. A big Stones fan, she was also into The Who and all kinds of great British music (though she wasn’t British).
Anyway, I don’t know how I settled on The Kinks’ album Give the People What They Want that afternoon, but I did. And I’d like to say that the album blew my mind but that would be a lie, as I never got past the first song. There was something about Destroyer that seriously clicked with my music-bone and when the song ended I leapt up and restarted it. I sat down on the carpet in front of the record player and again and again I lifted the needle and plunked it back into the first groove*. I mean I just could not get enough of that song into my head. By the time someone arrived home to the apartment I had every word memorized (although I had plenty of the lyrics wrong, as was my habit). I was especially smitten with the fact that the little man in the protagonist’s head was yellow at the beginning of the song while later in the song he is green.
It mystifies me why I dug that colour change so much and I similarly have no idea why I loved the song so completely (to date I still haven’t heard the rest of the record). But then, I’ve never been able to figure out my attraction to The Kinks at all. They don’t seem brilliant, but they clearly were. In fact, there is nothing in particular about The Kinks that I could point at and say, “Y’see, this is what makes them brilliant.” But they are.
Which brings me around to Ray Davies (the guitar-playing half of The Kinks’ brothers) playing the Black Sheep Stage at the Ottawa Bluesfest on July 11th, 2008. I’d tried to get onsite in time for at least the last few songs of Ball & Chain but I missed them. What I did find was a swath of lawnchairs uncharacteristically swarming the Black Sheep Stage. It was clear that if I wanted a good spot for Davies’ set I was going to have to park myself there for the duration, so I did. This exposed me to the entirety of Shelby Lynn’s mediocre opening set. She was touring her album of Dusty Springfield covers so even though I had never heard of the lady before I still recognized a few songs, like Breakfast in Bed and I Only Want to Be with You. Regardless, her entire show came off as uninspired at best, and had I not been concerned about being shut out of the Black Sheep for Ray Davies I would’ve bailed to any of the other stages. Luckily I didn’t.
Ray Davies performed as a duo with another guitar player, both of them sitting in chairs. Not a recipe for an epic rock show but somehow it still was. The songwriting was just so…right. Of course he played tons of Kinks tunes like Dedicated Follower of Fashion, Sunny Afternoon, and Where Have All the Good Times Gone** but the new material was – dare I say it? – just about as good as The Kinks songs. He played tons of stuff I had never heard before and somehow, some way, they were all secretly brilliant. I swear, Ray Davies must be one of the greatest musical storytellers in the biz. His songwriting is like Picasso’s drawing of Dove; it’s so simple as to be almost child-like and yet somehow utterly perfect.
It was such a great set. Thank gawd he didn’t play Destroyer; I might have died.
While the acoustic duo was great of course so many of the songs silently screamed for a full band treatment. So it was a treat when Shelby’s band (without Shelby) joined the pair onstage for the last two songs, All Day and All of the Night and the set-ending You Really Got Me** and man, it rocked! They were loosely rehearsed but the band was obviously pumped to be backing up Ray Davies which gave the tunes exactly the right bit of going for it that makes them work so well.
Unfortunately Davies ended by cutting his show short – if I recall this correctly I believe he said he was sick and just couldn’t finish. And so we were robbed of the encore, which could only have been Lola. Talk about leaving me wanting more! Here I had just witnessed pure rock and roll magic on my favourite stage at my favourite festival and yet somehow Ray Davies still managed to leave me disappointed.
I just don’t know how he does it.
*Yeah, yeah, I know there is only one groove on each side of a record. Gimme a break once in a while wouldja?
**I was astounded when I first discovered that these weren’t Van Halen songs.
Todd Man Out 