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I’ve never heard anyone who’s seen The Kinks live say they were a great live band. I’ve never seen them myself because dating back to my high school days, when they were at their suprising arena-rock height and I’d hear live concerts of them, they never sounded like they’d deliver anything near what I loved about them on record, in the privacy of my bedroom. Then, into the early ’80s, they started making albums that didn’t interest me in the least – and from concert recordings I’d hear from that period they had the nerve to stand behind those new songs and play them live.
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As video evidence of my favorite rock bands became more accessible in the ’80s, even early performances of The Kinks with all their British Invasion exhuberance were unwhelming. There are many reasons for why The Kinks have never been known as anything more than a mediocre live band, but from what I’ve seen the reasons start with Ray Davies. He’s too self-conscious. The humor of The Kinks is in the music; he doesn’t need to play it up with the goofy hand gestures (see the 40-second mark of the above clip, where Ray’s pointless holstering and gesturing first kick in) and “Banana Boat Song” call-and-response nonsense. That stuff almost always takes me out of the performance and undercuts the ambiguities inherent in their music. It doesn’t help that Ray seems incapable of smiling without smirking.
Meanwhile, the poignancy of The Kinks’ music often gets lost in their live performances. That 1977 clip that Townsman misterioso provided of The Kinks playing “Celluloid Heroes” on British television was surprisingly straightforward and appropriately reserved, but too often, from what I’ve seen and heard, Ray can’t step forward as a clear, confident lead singer on a sensitive song and the band can’t lay back and support things in a subtle, interesting way to make what I feel is the heart of the sound of The Kinks work in a live setting. Am I way off base here; does any of this ring true?
I should note that there is ample video evidence of The Kinks lip-synching to their greatest, most poignant songs, and they demonstrate great skill at this then-nascent rock ‘n roll act. I’m not kidding – and this may be saying something that will help answer the question for you at the end of this piece.
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Before we get into the question I have for you, here’s an interesting clip I’d never seen before today. Ray is sans guitar and energetically fronting a full-title boogie band version of The Kinks, from a 1972 television show, if I’m getting this right. The clip even comes with the magical timecode that, in my opinion, makes any video at least two degrees cooler.
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I don’t know about you, but as I consider my following question, this version of “Victoria” gives me nutritious food for thought. Are you ready for the question? Here goes:
If you could go back in time and give The Kinks advice on how to better present themselves as a live band, what would suggest?
Be honest, be creative. Here’s your chance to go back in time and right the ship, help The Kinks find their voice as a live act and, if you’re a longtime skeptic like me, regret not ever having seen them live.
PS – Here’s one more clip from that show that featured “Victoria.” No timecode, but again, something I’d never seen before and something that gives me a lot to chew on.
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This is the thread I was basically born to contribute to. Thank you, Mr. Mod.
See, I want The Kinks to reunite, but I want to be the musical director if this happens. I choose the set list, the gear, the lineup, the wardrobe.
But I’m gonna need some time to properly address this thread.
For the time being, I’d like you all to offer your opinions on the following. This shows up on YouTune once in a while and then gets pulled by Konk Studios. It’s back up again for now. This latter-day footage, I think, shows them sorta on the right track live for the first time in ages. Of course, they broke up not long after.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piSnpL8No1Q
Take all the time you need, Oats. Glad we could be of assistance. I like that clip. It’s telling, as I’ve been thinking about this, that it’s another studio performance.
Mod, excellent topic. You are pretty much spot on, and you provided clips of precisely one of the performances I wanted to highlight: this 1972 TV special, which I have had for a few years now and which is the only sustained Kinks performance that I have seen where everything is working. There is also the coolness of hearing them do songs from Muswell Hillbillies (well, only a couple: Acute Schizophrenia Blues and Holiday). The whole program is really very good, as the clips here indicate, despite a pointless foray into Good Golly Miss Molly.
The core group really benefited from the expanded lineup present in this period, and for all I know they might have really developed into something special if Ray had not taken a left turn into Preservation Parts 1 through infinity and Soap Opera, etc.
I will tend to defend the Sleepwalker-Misfits-Low Budget Kinks more than most. But the fact is that at their peak as a recording unit they did not really exist as a live unit, so we will never know what they would have done with it live. By the time they reemerged as a live band–I have heard some not-too-great quality audio bootlegs from 69/70 (from the Fillmore, maybe?), they were not exactly knockin’ ’em dead live.
OK. So I chose the goofball-Ray option in the poll, because I think his schtick is what takes a band that is merely hit-and-miss live (no sin, that) and makes them kinda embarassing.
Also, I blame Ray for excising verses and bridges from beloved songs in concert. Playing only some of “Waterloo Sunset” and “Victoria” is like ending a production of Hamlet before the final act.
I agree that 1971-1972 was probably the best era for live Kinks, although I think the horn sections and backing vocalists could’ve been used a little more judiciously.
The BBC Sessions disc doesn’t really get going till around 1967, but there’s some pretty solid stuff in there.
If I think about it, my main problem with live Kinks is that, as their popularity declined in the mid-to-late ’80s, they were unable to “dial it down.” Their records and live shows are still arena rock, even though they were no longer able to fill arenas. I would’ve really liked to see them “unlearn what they learned” and try and get back to the offhand grace of their best work. That video I linked above showed that they could’ve done it, but by then it was too late; the band was finished.
Two more things:
A) Although much of his latter-day guitar tone annoys me, in a way I feel for Dave. He created a legendarily raunchy guitar sound in 1964. But then he needed to play those songs in 1972… 1979… 1993. He had to play those songs and capture the raunchiness, taking into account how loud, overdriven guitar sounds had evolved in the ensuing years.
B) As I said, I really enjoyed The Kinks show I saw in ’95. And the friend I brought with me was an instant convert. It may take some slightly less iron-clad distinctions about what is and isn’t a rock crime — you know, the way other people listen to music — to see the value of live Kinks: They took lonely-person music and made it a party.
I also have that ’72 BBC In Concert TV special (actually it was done in 1973) which I found down the street in the same gloried junk shop where I found that Jellyfish CD (which I got rid of to finance my purchase of the Beatles Mono Box Set). It has to be the most satisfying Kinks performance I experienced, including the live shows which I’ve seen.
I think one problem w/the Kinks live was that there was a lack of subtlety, especially post 1977. I actually listened to The Road last night & I think that the one problem was that Ray was dumbing down his songs in order to appeal to a wider audience. He was more effective when he was doing the Storyteller thingie (which I saw he do twice in 1996 & 1998, the latter a free show @ the Old South Meeting House in Boston)& also the Konk Studios portion of To The Bone.
I would have liked to have seen the Kinks live from 1973-75, their “Rock Opera” period. From what I have seen (that Soap Opera show that was horribly recorded & is on YouTube), they were pretty entertaining.
Oats wrote, “Their records and live shows are still arena rock, even though they were no longer able to fill arenas. I would’ve really liked to see them “unlearn what they learned” and try and get back to the offhand grace of their best work.”
Yes, this is well said. The difficulty is that acts almost never are able to do this. It would be an interesting exercise to think of bands/performers who did.
I would like to have seen the Soap Opera show too. I love Soap Opera. I saw the Schoolboys in Disgrace tour, and it was fine — a college gig — but a little disappointing, because it was focused on Schoolboys, my least favorite of the concept albums.
I saw them again in 1977 (Tom Petty opened), and I remember it as being excellent. This would have been around Sleepwalker, and I assume Dalton was gone by then and maybe Gosling(?). Anyway I don’t have too many actual memories of the show, other than that I liked it.
My advice — to the Kinks of every era — would be absolutely no Day-o and any song started must be played to completion with no skipped parts.
Also to the later Kinks, would it kill you to play a few gems from the 66-69 era? It would make a sector of the audience insanely happy.
I brought this up in an old thread back when RTH was a Yahoo group. The two bands that come to mind are Blur (The Great Escape vs. the self-titled album) and Cheap Trick (managing to uncheesy themselves on the 1997 s/t album). Tom Waits may also qualify.
I’m reading a McCartney biography at the moment. It has its good points, and I’m probably in the middle of the best points, on McCartney’s formation of Wings and their first recordings/albums. It’s no more detailed than a decent Mojo article, but I’ve never paid much attention to reading about solo Paul. Anyhow, how this applies to this discussion is the notion of playing live to film or television, which McCartney started pushing for with Let It Be and beyond, with The Beatles, while they were still in existence, and then toyed with doing as he launched his solo/Wings career. It got me thinking, as did this Kinks thread, that there are some bands for whom doing more recorded, controlled performances over live tours would be better. In this day and age, for instance, imagine if there was a quarterly Beatles show on HBO in which they performed a brief concert of newer (and older) material. It would have been like the glory days of pay-per-view championship boxing matches.
Beginning at that same time, in the late-60s and into the early ’70s, I would have loved to have seen a quarterly televised studio performance by The Kinks. I get the feeling, both from the perspectives expressed in the music and what I’ve seen of live performances, that Ray is not that comfortable with people. If he and the band could have taken the time to craft a cool thematic concert a few times a year – one with some control over sound, lighting, and so forth – they could have more successfully extended the world of their albums.
I don’t believe this method of a band marketing itself would work for all bands or all their releases, but for bands that create definite musical worlds and that have frontmen who are both extroverted yet awkward (eg, Andy Partridge with XTC) this could have been a good use of the television medium to promote rock bands.
As for the Kinks, I’d keep the focus on the songs, let Ray have the freedom to go sans guitar or play an acoustic, and allow for supplemental musicians. Cut down the silly hand gestures. Cut out the sing-along segments. No “Banana Boat” nonsense. How cool would a televised concert of Arthur have been? Or the band performing Muswell Hillbillies in a rickety pub, like the one pictured on the album cover? The shows should be lit with the skill of German tv broadcasts. Although highly unusual, I would recommend the use of timecode on the actual broadcast.
Give The People What They Need!
BigSteve, why do you love Soap Opera? Every few years I try again; nothing comes through.
I don’t know I love everything about Soap Opera. I just love the sound of the band in this period — the 2nd half of Preservation through Schoolboys. Dave was rocking a bit more, but was playing Strat and hadn’t yet gotten a Les Paul, set it on stun, and gone all heroic. That combined with Dalton on a Rickenbacker bass was just a cool texture. The band was also touring a lot, so they really played well together.
I also think the theme is very interesting. Ray liked to play with these dualities — fantasy/reality, showbiz/working stiff, fame/anonymity — and he handles them with a gentle sense of humor, even though the ‘who am I? Ray or normal Norman?’ is dead serious. Believe me, I have a very low tolerance for theatricality, but if yo want to hear this music, you just have to make allowances for the dialogue. There’s really not all that much of it.
Plus this came out when I was in college, just as I was graduating actually, so it retains an aura of that time in my life.
And I love A Face In The Crowd. It’s one of my favorites, and if you give me a guitar and ask me to sing a Kinks song that’s the one I’d do.
BigSteve, I appreciate the response. Who knows, maybe it will click someday. I can’t help but feel like Soap Opera/Preservation reside in the shoulda/coulda heap, where the writer’s ambition was not matched by the results.