Review - Ray Solo, 9 October, 1995, Galaxy Theatre, Santa Ana, CA

From: Robert Peirson
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 95 09:55:00 PDT
Subject: Review , Galaxy, 10/9

We attended the July 11th House of Blues show in L.A. which was the first of the 1995 U.S. Kinks tour. Last night we saw Ray begin his solo tour at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana, Ca. The Galaxy Theatre is in an industrial complex and looks a bit like a converted wherehouse. It seats about 550.

We had dinner reservations and sat on risers in the first tier. Next to us sat a true music and Kinks fan. He was wearing a Hall of Fame shirt and told us he saw the Kinks do Lola and All the Day and All of the Night at the September grand opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The opening act was Kevin Fisher of the band "Naked to the world". He played the following songs: Walls Came Down, Father and Me, Going Down in Flames, Give me your Hand and Bitchin Hair. On last two he was joined by a female violinist. Overall he had a good voice and sounded like Jackson Brown. He came on at 8pm and was done at 8:25pm.

At 8:40 pm Ray was introduced. He came on stage with guitarist Peter Mathson.

 - DEDICATED FOLLOWER OF FASHION
 - AUTUMN ALMANAC
 - SUNNY AFTERNOON
" . . . Welcome to the next century . . . X-Ray"
 - VICTORIA
Book Reading: . . . Grew up ordinary hoping some day to be an individual"
 - 20TH CENTURY MAN
" . . . when I was young I would visit Soho . . . "
 - THE LONDON SONG
Book Reading: As a kid Dave and I would listen to the records our sisters 
had, this one record
 they had was considered too sexy to play in front of mum . . .'
 - OLD BLACK MAGIC
 - TIRED OF WAITING
"When we were teenagers we decided to go electric . . . Dave bought the 
green amp. . ."
 - SET ME FREE
". . . I went to the doctor and was told that my bad back would get a hump 
like an old man I
  saw if I kept playing football . . ."
 - X-RAY
Book Reading: . . . Dave put some knitting  needles into our green amp and 
we then referred to
  it as the Fart box. . .'
 - SEE MY FRIENDS
"The girls in art school were great . . ."
 - ART SCHOOL BABES
La Bamba intro, talked about band members, "Let's here it for Mick Avory", 
told the story of You
Really Got Me intro, Peter does guitar strumming.
 - YOU REALLY GOT ME (Blues style without riff opening)
"Groupies, I met Anita in Soho, she became my special teacher . . ."
 - SHE WAS REALLY ANIMAL
Book Reading: We were playing in a package with the Beatles . . . John 
Lennon touched his
guitar . . . offer a Beatles song . . .  Dave turned up the amp and out came 
YRGM . . . we had
up staged the Beatles . . ."
 - YOU REALLY GOT ME (with electric Guitar intro, short version)
"In America they misunderstood the reference to Fag in . . ."
 - A WELL RESPECTED MAN
"When we arrived at JFK I was asked are you a Beatle or a Girl, I thought, I 
said, I am a queer"
 - AMERICANA (or Big Fat Cowboy)
 - I GO TO SLEEP
 - TWO SISTERS
". . . Alan Klein said sign the dotted line . . ."
 - THE MONEY-GO-ROUND
 - DEAD END STREET
 - BALLAD OF JULIE FINKLE
 - LOLA
 - APEMAN
". . . When my wife left see took all the records except for our song . . ."
 - TO THE BONE
Book Reading: . . . we worked on the village green . . .
 - VILLAGE GREEN
"The song Days was to be the last of the original Kinks songs, Pete was 
leaving the band . . ."
 - DAYS
 - WATERLOO SUNSET
Book reading: My dad came backstage after YRGM became a bit hit . . . we 
when and had a beer . . .
 - YOU REALLY GOT ME (Reprise)
Ended at 11:50pm

Overall a great show. Many times he would pause in the middle of the song to tell a story related to the book. I have never heard Ray talk so much. Having just read the book, I gained much insight to what he was expressing. For the most part the fans listened, with a few shouting our requests. It was strange to hear three different versions of YRGM. The only dissapointment was the lack of post 1971 songs. His new songs were more narratives to a story than a true Ray compostition. Many of the fans, myself included, brought his book X-Ray to be signed in hopes of Ray hanging around after the show but were disappointed.

Rob

From: BADICAL
Newsgroups: alt.fan.kinks
Subject: Ray at the Galaxy - 10-09-95
Date: 11 Oct 1995 07:32:42 -0400

I thoroughly enjoyed Ray's first US solo show. I may be wrong but I don't recall Ray ever going solo in the US before - certainly there has never been a solo tour. Anyway, the show was great and seemed similar to the previous descriptions of the UK shows. The show was different than a Kinks show. In fact, it reminded me more of a one-man theatrical show, rather, a cross between a concert, a one-man show, and a book reading. This was the Story of Raymond Douglas Davies as presented by RD.

Part of the atmosphere came from the venue. The Galaxy Theater was an intimate 500 seatdinner theater, semi-circular in shape, with tables spaced out over several tiers of increasing height. You had to have a dinner reservation to get close. This created a relaxing atmosphere to listen to Ray sing, read, and spin stories.

The first four songs were performed similar to the opening acoustic portion of recent shows. Ray's voice was in great shape, not nearly as raspy as when I saw the Kinks at the House of Blues. The vocals on Victoria were awesome. For the rest of the shown Ray read from his book, told stories, and sand great songs. Requests were politely ignored. I don't think the paper plates will work this time, but you never know. Yes, as said before, most of the songs were cut short - some veryshort - but this fit the style of the show. The new songs sounded good and included funny and/or touching lyrics that were related to stories in his autobiography. The acoustic performance allowed one to appreciate how great the familiarsongs are. All songs were from the 1960s or early 1970s. This was no snub to later songs, the songs played fit the time frame and theme of the book. Ray's only help was from a guitar player named Peter ????????. The highlight of the show for me were the several songs that I had never seen at a Kink's show like Village Green, Dead End Street, Two Sisters, the Moneygoround, See My Friends, and Waterloo Sunset (finally!!!). Thankfully, LOLA was cut very short but I wish Ray played the last verse of Waterloo Sunset.

Anyway, the setlist was as follows:

There was no encore. I am not sure if this will be standard for this tour, or, Ray was just tired from the trip from England. He played 2 hours and 10 minutes so I think the crowd got its $45 worth. Several People (including myself) tried to get Ray to sign X-Rayafter the show but we were told Ray was too tired. They said he may sign after the Wednesday show, which doesn't do me any good as I live in Northern CA (I can't make the Thurs. signing in SF either). One thing I like about Kinks Koncerts, or Ray Davies solo shows, is that I always meet several friendly people who, unlike most of my friends, like to talk about the Kinks. I was seated at a table with several nice Kinks fans which made the conversation very enjoyable. I even met a couple of people who read this newgroup.

Anyway, See the show, have fun, live life!

BOB

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