Ray Davies & The 88
The Canyon Club
Agoura Hills, CA
March 25, 2010
By Victoria Joyce
(SugarBuzz Hollywood)
Photography by David Arnspiger
The Canyon Club is about an hour northwest of LA and the local home of “Bald Spot Rock.” A medium-big place in the middle of a mall, in the middle of nowhere. Mostly nostalgia circuit stuff. But tonight well worth the drive. Or so we hoped.
It’s not a nightclub, it’s a 
restaurant with a stage on one side and music fans on the other, as if someone put Hamburger Hamlet in the middle of the Key Club. We were not permitted access to the stage to take pictures and waitresses snarled at us. Not cool.
Luckily, our hero (and photographer) David Arnspiger brought a long lens. We got shoved in the back and barely caught strained glimpses of Raymond Douglas Davies. It was torture.
Leader of The Kinks, Ray Davies is on our Top Five list that starts with John Lennon, ends with David Bowie and includes Pete Townsend and Mick Jagger. Beyond icon and genius, Ray Davies is truly and explicitly divine. Our favorite songwriter of all time. Poet, performer, musician, the voice of an angel and still not bad looking at all, he is venerated above the rest. Water boarding would have been more humane.
Enough with the rant. Opening the show, KCRW darlings and LA’s own; The 88. Pleasant and poppy-punk with a Buddy Holly-clone lead singer, The 88 synced nicely with Ray Davies. This keyboard-driven quartet has opened for him on this short-short (Feb-March) US tour and getting good buzz for good reason. Delightful 
stuff.
His adopted New Orleans Zydeco-style music signaled Ray’s entrance. A simple “hi” was Davies’ greeting as he took the stage for this acoustic show on stools with sideman Bill Shanley also on guitar and hailing from County Cork. Oh yeah, he’s an Irishman.
Packed with devoted fans, who knew every word to every song, Ray requested back up singing for his Spartan set and got it. Included were early gems from the Kinks and his recent solo stuff.
Songs were intro’ed with personal stories about his brother and band mate Dave, a possible Kinks reunion (“I’m still waiting for the phone call”), a David Letterman impersonation, a reading from autobiography “X-ray,” the dirt
behind his gun shot wound in New Orleans & recovery that was aided by dear friend, the late Alex Chilton and his studio-only reunion with Chrissie Hynde on “Postcard From London.”
Davies did the second half of “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” as Johnny Cash, that was a hoot. And included a medley of Kinks songs used in movies that was pretty cool.
Ray asked his guitar tech (almost) off-mic if “is he still in the hospital?” and went on to relate how director Wim Wenders wanted to use his music but didn’t have the money. That film was “The American Friend” starring Dennis Hopper who is indeed just out of the hospital.
The 88 came back to the stage for the last five songs. Set list follows. Despite the horrible venue, the 90 minute show was magnificent.
Ray will rest in April and do 17 UK dates in May. Also in the works is an album of Kinks Klassics re-recorded with Ray and guest stars; Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and others due out later this year. How delicious is that? And the reunion is real.
God Save the Kinks.
Set List:
This is Where I Belong
I Need You
Where Have All The Good Times Gone
In a Moment –Working Man’s Café
Victoria
20th Century Man
The Tourist
Apeman
Dedicated Follower of Fashion
Sisters
The Hard Way
See My Friends
Movies Section:
Well Respected Man
Sunny Afternoon
Movie Section:
I’m Not Like Everybody Else (The Sopranos)
Nothing in this World (Mt Rushmore)
Too Much on my Mind (The American Friend)
Postcard from London
So Tired
All of the Day and All of the Night
You Really Got Me
David Watts
Celluloid Heroes
Low Budget
Lola