Even with new solo CD, Davies gets the Kinks out
Early on in his show at the Orpheum, Ray Davies joked that he's fined $10 every time he mentions his old band onstage. To the delight of his fans, Davies is in serious debt.
The former Kinks frontman is touring in support of his fine new solo album, "Working Man's Cafe," but he devoted equal time to the iconic work of his seminal British rock band during an effusive, big-hearted show on Sunday. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Davies seems to know - or, more to the point, care - what his music means to people. Rather than dutifully trot out truncated versions of the hits, he performed "Lola" and "A Well Respected Man" and "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" with as much vigor and enthusiasm as the delirious concertgoers received them.
Ever candid, Davies did note that he was so ashamed of "Sunny Afternoon" when he wrote it that he waited until the song hit No. 1 to play it live. And yet 42 years later, a grinning Davies led the audience through that deceptively breezy indictment of the British tax system in a shambling, euphoric singalong.
It's an uncommon rock star who values his fans' tastes as highly as his own, and that sense of mutual respect and gratitude infused the evening with great good cheer. It came in especially handy during a long stretch of new material that anchored the second of Davies's two sets. The seated, acoustic portion threw a wrench into the show's galloping pace but at the same time was embraced by the many older concertgoers as a chance to rest their bones.
"Working Man's Cafe" is a lovely, biting collection, a return to the keenly observed topicality that set the Kinks apart from their hedonistic '60s peers. The title track is a milder-mannered, but no less savvy, descendent of "20th Century Man" (a fiery highlight of the first set), and "Vietnam Cowboys," a dark country-rocker with a globalization theme, felt like an urgent companion piece to "Celluloid Heroes," another of Sunday's standouts. Even "One More Time," an earthy paean to lost love, mourns a world, not simply romance, gone awry.
At 63, Davies's voice has thinned a bit, and the tight four-piece band backing him rocked hard enough to warrant more of the singer in the sound mix. Then again, with an impromptu chorus of thousands backing him for most of the show, the mix was frankly moot.
Whoever hired Janis Joplin wannabe Dana Fuchs (who played Sadie in the 2007 film "Across the Universe") as opening act on this tour should have his or her head examined. An artist of Davies's caliber deserves a far better warm-up than this derivative singer and uninspired songwriter.
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com
