Ray Davies - Live in Detroit July 1, 2006

[TV Forces]

I just got back from my first Ray Davies concert. A free one at the Comerica Tastefest in downtown Detroit. It was a great show. Just a couple weeks after Ray turned 62 and you'd never know it. He rocked. The only negative thing was that due to the festival, he probably couldn't play as long as he wanted. I heard he's been doing a couple multi-song encores, tonight he played for 90 minutes. Here's the setlist:

1. Low Budget
2. I'm Not Like Everybody Else
3. Where Have All The Good Times Gone?
4. After the Fall
5. Here Come the People In Grey (couple verses)
6. 20th Century Man
7. Next Door Neighbour
8. Over My Head
9. Sunny Afternoon
10. Dead End Street
11. The Tourist
12. Till the End of the Day
13. A Long Way From Home
14. A Well Respected Man (couple verses)
15. The Getaway (Lonesome Train)
16. Tired Of Waiting For You
17. All Day and All of the Night
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18. You Really Got Me
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19. Lola

As opposed to all the people that came to see Ray, there are always those who just go because it's a free show. And they sat right behind my wife and I. There were folding chairs set up and we were in about the 11th row. A nice sized, Ray adoring crowd. But two guys sat behind us right before the set started. The one says to the other, "how's your view?" And he said, "fine, except for these lovebirds in front of us." We weren't even doing anything. And they kept yelling "down in front," expecting us to sit down so they could see, when everyone in front of us was standing! They kept nudging the chair into the back of my wifes legs and eventually took off. But that's not going to dampen our night. We paid only $5 to park, got great seats and a fantastic 90 minute set by the legendary Ray Davies!

[Roger Ryan]

TV Forces - Glad you enjoyed Ray's set; it was a good one. One note regarding the set list: I don't believe Ray did any of "...People In Grey"; what you heard was the intro to "20th Century Man" which mentions "...people dressed in grey" in the lyric. Otherwise, the list is accurate. For me, "Long Way From Home" was the selection that devastated me since I had never heard him perform it before. Also, his new material sounded great. The set was shortened to accomodate the free festival format as you say so we didn't get to hear "Animal Farm", "Days", "Picture Book", "Village Green" and a couple other classics he's been perfoming recently! Oh well, at least we got to see him.

By the way, The New Pornographers did a fantastic set the next night!