Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo - Jane Street Theater, New York City, 8-25-2000

I just posted a Ray Davies stray tracks album, and that got me thinking about this concert. I gave it another listen today and decided to post it here, because it's a fantastic concert. The sound is very good, the performance is solid, but what I most like about it is that it's kind of a dream concert for serious Kinks fans, because Davies didn't play many of his overplayed hits, and instead played lots of new songs and rarely played obscure gems.

Davies' solo career got off to a good start in 1998 with "Storyteller," a live acoustic album with lots of new songs. By 2000, he had enough songs for a solid new album, but apparently he had trouble getting a record contract. (He alludes to his lack of a record contract in this concert, in comments made before "The Deal".) Davies didn't have a band at the time, but he got together with Yo La Tengo, who are huge Kinks fans, so he could try out his new songs in front of an audience. They only played three shows together, all at Jane Street Theater in New York City. This is the final night.

All total, I count 10 then-unreleased songs, for a total of nearly one hour out of the two hours in this recording. This is the only time I know of when Davies ever played so many unreleased songs in concert, since he usually doesn't play any at all. Most of the songs would find their way onto his next solo album, "Other People's Lives," which strangely wouldn't get released until six years later. But one, "The Deal," wouldn't get released until the "Americana" album in 2017.Two more, "Americana (Hey Big Fat Cowboy)" and "Otis Riffs," still haven't been released. (Note that "Americana (Hey Big Fat Cowboy)" is not to be confused with "Americana," a song on the "Americana" album.)

Yo La Tengo pushed Davies to play some of their favorite obscure Kinks songs as well. Thus, he played great songs he'd rarely or never done in concert before, like "This Is Where I Belong," "No Return," "Animal Farm," "I Go to Sleep," and "Two Sisters." At one point, he joked that playing such songs was the price he had to pay the band in order for them to agree to back him.

Note that this recording is only an audience bootleg, not a soundboard. But sometimes audience recordings sound as good as or even better than a soundboard. This is one of those times. Admittedly, the recording had lots of volume problems, but I managed to fix them. For instance, the clapping at the end of each song was way too loud, so I lowered that. Also, the talking between songs was way too quiet, so I boosted that. The acoustic songs were too quiet compared to the full-band ones, so I boosted those as well. I made a number of other tweaks, including losing some tuning and other dead air between songs while keeping all of Davie's talking. The end result is one that sounds really good, in my opinion.

By the way, the first two songs aren't actually from the same concert, but they are from the same three night series with Yo La Tengo. "Village Green" is from two nights earlier, and "Two Sisters" is from one night earlier. The setlists were almost exactly the same all three nights, but these were the rare cases when different songs were played.

"Low Budget" was the last song played, but the recording got cut off only a minute or two into the song, so I didn't include that.

01 Village Green (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
02 Two Sisters (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
03 To the Bone (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
04 Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
05 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
06 Animal (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
07 My Next Door Neighbour (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
08 Creatures of Little Faith (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
09 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
10 Animal Farm (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
11 No Return (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
12 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
13 Things Are Gonna Change [The Morning After] (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
14 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
15 The Deal (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
16 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
17 Americana [Hey Big Fat Cowboy] (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
18 Empty Room (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
19 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
20 Stand Up Comic (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
21 All Day and All of the Night (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
22 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
23 Celluloid Heroes (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
24 I Go to Sleep (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
25 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
26 My Diary (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
27 I'm Not Like Everybody Else (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
28 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
29 This Strange Effect (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
30 Otis Riffs (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
31 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
32 Vietnam Cowboy (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
33 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
34 This Is Where I Belong (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
35 Where Have All the Good Times Gone (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
36 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
37 Thanksgiving Day (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
38 You Really Got Me (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
39 talk (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
40 I Need You (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)
41 Till the End of the Day (Ray Davies with Yo La Tengo)

https://www.imagenetz.de/fSqbY

I'm happy to say that although the photo used for the cover art isn't from the concert in question, it's close. It's from just two nights earlier, August 23rd, at the same location and with the same band. The first song actually comes from that show.