Post by sleepwalker24 on Jul 1, 2012 14:52:11 GMT -5
Ray Davies at Hop Farm Festival, Friday, 29th June, 2012
I thought I'd write a little review of Ray's set at Hop Farm yesterday.
After thinking about how much it cost in fuel and the fact that me and Pete (and Lola!) embarked on a 10 hour round trip, I've concluded that I perhaps have a slight obsession with Ray but I won't go into that...Anyway, all that travelling for just one hour of Ray. I was hoping for an hour and a half set but after buying one of the programmes (£5 for the privledge of knowing what time acts are actually going to be performing ) my suspicions that Ray would only perform for an hour were confirmed.
I desperately wanted a good spot and knowing that thousands of people were in attendance we thought it would be a good idea to find a decent spot next to the stage an hour before Ray was due on at 7.30pm. There was already a very large crowd watching another act (George Clinton and the Parliament Funakadelic, not really my cuppa tea but quite fun to listen to for a bit) so we hung around the sidelines until they finished playing at 7pm. I was convinced that we'd get a great spot but sadly 'twas not to be. In fact, I think this was one of the worse festival crowds I've ever encountered, a lot of really drunk, really rude and really annoying people - sorry to sound mean spirited but it's true. It irritated me that many of the people up against the barrier seemed to be there for Peter Gabriel who was on after Ray, all taking up the front row whilst pretty much standing there motionless whilst he was on. I probably sound awful, I know they payed for tickets the same as I did but I made a point of not trying to get to the front whilst the previous band was on, I felt I shouldn't, as some of that crowd might've come a long way just to see that particular act - just as I had to see Ray.
In my opinion the majority of the crowd weren't big Ray fans, they just wanted to hear Sunny Afternoon and Waterloo Sunset - I even heard someone say - ''Who's Ray Davies?'' - ''Oh, you know, he's that guy who does Waterloo Sunset'' - ''Oh, yeah''
I sensed that Ray picked up on this, and because of this and his one hour limet he mainly stuck to the bighits - the songs that would appeal to the masses. On the plus side Ray looked very well in my opinion and sounded great. It was a pretty energetic show, he enagaged a lot with the audience (although I sensed he knew that a lot of people had really come to hear the 60s stuff) and seemed in pretty good spirits The show opened with a great rockin' rendition of I Need You, followed by Where Have All The Good Times Gone?, and then onto I'm Not Like Everybody Else, I didn't think these songs made as much of an impact ot the crowd as they should've done - the people around me didn't really get properly animated and excited until he played Dedicated Follower Of Fashion and Sunny Afternoon. It was quite funny during DFOF as halfway through he declared that he was going to sing the rest Johnny Cash style! ;D For those of you who've seen Ray a few times he made the usual joke of saying ''That's dedicated not medicated'' and asked us all ''When did it happen?'' during Sunny Afternoon - ''In the summer time'' of course!
Considering how antisocial some of the crowd were I guess I was lucky to get as close to the stage as I did, I had a good view and it was nice to see Ray and Bill exchanging glances and smiles at each other during guitar solos I was suprised that Ray didn't take his jacket off, it was a bit windy during his set but really quite hot but he didn't seem bothered. He did make reference to the ridiculously rainy June we've just had though, before playing Sunny Afternoon, because ''I'm expected to play this''. I had to smile when I saw Ray's hair (you'll see what I mean from the photos) I noticed at the Come Dancing show that he appears to be growing it longer at the back but on Friday it had formed this sort of curious spike on the top of his head - I thought it looked kinda cool though I doubt it was intentional!
Other songs performed included Dead End Street - I enjoyed that, Ray and Bill went off into a bluesy little jam at the end - I Need You, a short snippet of Victoria before 20th Century Man, All Day And All Of The Night (with the whole wayo/hey thing) Days, Lola, Come Dancing and predictably he ended with You Really Got Me. No solo stuff or anything remotely obscure but with a crowd like the one he had I doubt it would've been appreciated. Don't get me wrong, it was a great show and Ray's voice sounded great, but I would've liked to have heard a solo song of two (Although to be honest he could play anything and I'd still think he was wondeful! ;D)
I felt bad that Ray never got the beer he asked for several times - there was a guy named Kevin who kept bringing on Ray's guitars but he never did go get Ray that beer he asked for. There was a cup of something on the stage when he first came on (water perhaps?) that he promptly kicked to the edge of the stage, spraying a few people at the very front of the crowd. In fact, during the ''Sipping at my ice cold beer line'' in Sunny Afternoon, he quickly added ''I wish!'' and I don't think he was joking.
I'd have got him one but for some reason he never asked me ;D
Come Dancing was good fun and I noticed Ray ended it slighty differently then usual by adding some extra notes, but the people around me really spoiled Waterloo Sunset - I actually felt quite bad for Ray. He sang quite quietly with minimal instrumentation to begin with, obviously hoping for the crowd to get involved - they did but all I could hear was people singing very loudly and totally off cue - which would've been much more acceptable if they'd actually know the words There was also this annoying group that kept shouting stuff really loudly at Ray but not in the breaks between songs, during the middle of them - I reckon that might've put Ray off a bit.
And don't even get me started on the 6 or 7 fifteen year olds next to me that sounded like they'd bought a basic Kinks comp about 3 days before the festival, played it around 5 times, tried to learn all the words and failed miserably - please people, don't sing at the very top of your voices when you barely know any of the words, or even the tune for that matter!
Actually after one crowd sing-a-long ( I can't remember which song) Ray looked towards Bill and said ''I was totally unimpressed with that'' and he sounded like he was being serious.
One thing that's worth mentioning, after getting us all to cheer for the Kinks, Ray asked us to cheer for his brother, Dave ''Death Of A Clown'' Davies - not just once but reffering to him this way at least 3 times, insisting each time that we could all do better and cheer louder. I was happy to cheer for Dave of course, but wondered why Ray made quite a big deal of it (in my opinion anyway.) I thought it was quite sweet but later I remembered reading in Kink (I think) that Dave hated Ray calling him that so I guess you can all draw your own conclusions... It made me think that Ray probably misses his brother more then he cares to admit though...
Pete managed to take some decent videos, although the Sunny Afternoon one is pretty shaky - due to Pete being pretty incensed by the inebriated guy behind us who kept trying to start something and seemed to have a problem with him - I still have no idea why but I guess that's what a full day's drinking in hot crowded conditions does to some people.
All in all it Ray put on a great show but I did feel bad for him that the crowd didn't really seem to apprecaite how lucky they were to be seeing a performer of Ray's importance and genius - but then I would say that, wouldn't I?! ;D
A few photos of the lovely Ray, taken by my friend (chauffeur and photographer!) Pete -
Check out that hair!! Reminds me of Tin Tin!
Purdy
And here's one of Ian -
Videos to come very soon, courtesy of Pete.
I thought I'd write a little review of Ray's set at Hop Farm yesterday.
After thinking about how much it cost in fuel and the fact that me and Pete (and Lola!) embarked on a 10 hour round trip, I've concluded that I perhaps have a slight obsession with Ray but I won't go into that...Anyway, all that travelling for just one hour of Ray. I was hoping for an hour and a half set but after buying one of the programmes (£5 for the privledge of knowing what time acts are actually going to be performing ) my suspicions that Ray would only perform for an hour were confirmed.
I desperately wanted a good spot and knowing that thousands of people were in attendance we thought it would be a good idea to find a decent spot next to the stage an hour before Ray was due on at 7.30pm. There was already a very large crowd watching another act (George Clinton and the Parliament Funakadelic, not really my cuppa tea but quite fun to listen to for a bit) so we hung around the sidelines until they finished playing at 7pm. I was convinced that we'd get a great spot but sadly 'twas not to be. In fact, I think this was one of the worse festival crowds I've ever encountered, a lot of really drunk, really rude and really annoying people - sorry to sound mean spirited but it's true. It irritated me that many of the people up against the barrier seemed to be there for Peter Gabriel who was on after Ray, all taking up the front row whilst pretty much standing there motionless whilst he was on. I probably sound awful, I know they payed for tickets the same as I did but I made a point of not trying to get to the front whilst the previous band was on, I felt I shouldn't, as some of that crowd might've come a long way just to see that particular act - just as I had to see Ray.
In my opinion the majority of the crowd weren't big Ray fans, they just wanted to hear Sunny Afternoon and Waterloo Sunset - I even heard someone say - ''Who's Ray Davies?'' - ''Oh, you know, he's that guy who does Waterloo Sunset'' - ''Oh, yeah''
I sensed that Ray picked up on this, and because of this and his one hour limet he mainly stuck to the bighits - the songs that would appeal to the masses. On the plus side Ray looked very well in my opinion and sounded great. It was a pretty energetic show, he enagaged a lot with the audience (although I sensed he knew that a lot of people had really come to hear the 60s stuff) and seemed in pretty good spirits The show opened with a great rockin' rendition of I Need You, followed by Where Have All The Good Times Gone?, and then onto I'm Not Like Everybody Else, I didn't think these songs made as much of an impact ot the crowd as they should've done - the people around me didn't really get properly animated and excited until he played Dedicated Follower Of Fashion and Sunny Afternoon. It was quite funny during DFOF as halfway through he declared that he was going to sing the rest Johnny Cash style! ;D For those of you who've seen Ray a few times he made the usual joke of saying ''That's dedicated not medicated'' and asked us all ''When did it happen?'' during Sunny Afternoon - ''In the summer time'' of course!
Considering how antisocial some of the crowd were I guess I was lucky to get as close to the stage as I did, I had a good view and it was nice to see Ray and Bill exchanging glances and smiles at each other during guitar solos I was suprised that Ray didn't take his jacket off, it was a bit windy during his set but really quite hot but he didn't seem bothered. He did make reference to the ridiculously rainy June we've just had though, before playing Sunny Afternoon, because ''I'm expected to play this''. I had to smile when I saw Ray's hair (you'll see what I mean from the photos) I noticed at the Come Dancing show that he appears to be growing it longer at the back but on Friday it had formed this sort of curious spike on the top of his head - I thought it looked kinda cool though I doubt it was intentional!
Other songs performed included Dead End Street - I enjoyed that, Ray and Bill went off into a bluesy little jam at the end - I Need You, a short snippet of Victoria before 20th Century Man, All Day And All Of The Night (with the whole wayo/hey thing) Days, Lola, Come Dancing and predictably he ended with You Really Got Me. No solo stuff or anything remotely obscure but with a crowd like the one he had I doubt it would've been appreciated. Don't get me wrong, it was a great show and Ray's voice sounded great, but I would've liked to have heard a solo song of two (Although to be honest he could play anything and I'd still think he was wondeful! ;D)
I felt bad that Ray never got the beer he asked for several times - there was a guy named Kevin who kept bringing on Ray's guitars but he never did go get Ray that beer he asked for. There was a cup of something on the stage when he first came on (water perhaps?) that he promptly kicked to the edge of the stage, spraying a few people at the very front of the crowd. In fact, during the ''Sipping at my ice cold beer line'' in Sunny Afternoon, he quickly added ''I wish!'' and I don't think he was joking.
I'd have got him one but for some reason he never asked me ;D
Come Dancing was good fun and I noticed Ray ended it slighty differently then usual by adding some extra notes, but the people around me really spoiled Waterloo Sunset - I actually felt quite bad for Ray. He sang quite quietly with minimal instrumentation to begin with, obviously hoping for the crowd to get involved - they did but all I could hear was people singing very loudly and totally off cue - which would've been much more acceptable if they'd actually know the words There was also this annoying group that kept shouting stuff really loudly at Ray but not in the breaks between songs, during the middle of them - I reckon that might've put Ray off a bit.
And don't even get me started on the 6 or 7 fifteen year olds next to me that sounded like they'd bought a basic Kinks comp about 3 days before the festival, played it around 5 times, tried to learn all the words and failed miserably - please people, don't sing at the very top of your voices when you barely know any of the words, or even the tune for that matter!
Actually after one crowd sing-a-long ( I can't remember which song) Ray looked towards Bill and said ''I was totally unimpressed with that'' and he sounded like he was being serious.
One thing that's worth mentioning, after getting us all to cheer for the Kinks, Ray asked us to cheer for his brother, Dave ''Death Of A Clown'' Davies - not just once but reffering to him this way at least 3 times, insisting each time that we could all do better and cheer louder. I was happy to cheer for Dave of course, but wondered why Ray made quite a big deal of it (in my opinion anyway.) I thought it was quite sweet but later I remembered reading in Kink (I think) that Dave hated Ray calling him that so I guess you can all draw your own conclusions... It made me think that Ray probably misses his brother more then he cares to admit though...
Pete managed to take some decent videos, although the Sunny Afternoon one is pretty shaky - due to Pete being pretty incensed by the inebriated guy behind us who kept trying to start something and seemed to have a problem with him - I still have no idea why but I guess that's what a full day's drinking in hot crowded conditions does to some people.
All in all it Ray put on a great show but I did feel bad for him that the crowd didn't really seem to apprecaite how lucky they were to be seeing a performer of Ray's importance and genius - but then I would say that, wouldn't I?! ;D
A few photos of the lovely Ray, taken by my friend (chauffeur and photographer!) Pete -
Check out that hair!! Reminds me of Tin Tin!
Purdy
And here's one of Ian -
Videos to come very soon, courtesy of Pete.