David Davies Delights Kinks Fans At Toad's
By Roger Catlin - Hartford Courant - December 4, 1997
Ray Davies has received so much credit as both the chief songwriter of
the
Kinks - both with the band and on his two-year solo tour - that one
wondered
whether his guitar-playing brother and frequent foil, Dave Davies, could
muster much of a tour of his own.
The pleasant surprise of Dave Davies' first-ever solo tour, which
stopped at
Toad's Place in New Haven Tuesday night, is that it actually may deliver
more
Kinks thrills than his big brother's. Besides being the groundbreaking
guitarist who brought forth the first fearsome power chords of "You
really Got
Me," helping give birth to hard rock, Dave Davies is the consummate
Kinks fan
as well.
He'd like nothing more than to be in the studio or on tour with the
great
surviving British band. But in it's place, he's obviously having a
splendid
time honoring the band in a tour named Kinks Kronikles. Like the 1972
album of
the same name, the tour sticks largely to obscure, melodic tunes from
the
band's late 60's period, when it was banned from performing in the
United
States because of a union dispute.
Backed by a talented young band, the show resulted in the kinds of
things fans
have been waiting 30 years to hear, performed live by a Kink, including
"Susannah's Still Alive," "Love Me Till the Sun Shines," "She's Got
Everything" and "Funny Face." "Over the years, there's been so many
neglected
Kinks songs," the youthful 50 year-old said before embarking on the
moving
"Young and Innocent Days."
Kicking off the show with a rocking "I Need You," it seemed at first
Davies
would be singing every song an octave higher than his brother. But he
came to
terms with most of the songs, his sweetly melodic voice sounding just
right on
most.
Davies good-naturedly skewered his brother's tour by pulling out a copy
of his
own black-bound biography and a pair of broken reading glasses, vowing
to read
every word of the book, exclaiming, "Enough rock 'n' roll!" It was just
a
joke, though, and he pulled on an acoustic guitar for a exquisite
acoustic
portion of the show that began with "Picture Book" and included a
beautiful
version of the 1970 "Strangers" and a heady "Too Much on My Mind."
"Fortis Green," the one song he wrote after finishing his biography,
"Kink,"
is a fine addition to his impressive catalog. Though he sold a new
collection
of his solo work, "Unfinished Business," Davies sang nearly nothing from
it,
happy to stay with the classic Kinks material that's influenced
generations of
British bands.
One band that would be inconceivable without the Kinks was the opener -
the
Botswanas, a band from New York and New Haven that produce marvelous,
hooky
songs based on '60's simplicity and '70's New Wave style. Its members
seemed
as excited about the headliner as the audience.
©1997 - Hartford Courant
