(Album ©1980, Arista Records)
One of my all-time favorite albums is
The Kinks’ One For The Road. I heard it for the first time in a ski trip in eighth grade. Don Saturday, wherever you are, thank you for bringing this along. This is one of the best live albums of all times, if you haven’t heard it yet, it’s a great example of hearing the songs you’ve heard a hundred times before in a new light, sounding fresher, more dynamic, and just better all around.
Also, there are some songs I had never heard before, and hearing them with the energy of these live performances for the first time really sold me on how good songs like “David Watts,” “The Hard Way,” “Victoria,” “National Health,” and others are, even though they’ve never been in rotation on the radio. Also, all of those songs sound significantly less dynamic on record.
Then, there are the hits. Ray Davies teases “Lola” a few times early in the show but then decides that the audience is “still not ready yet” before then playing the whole intro as the crowd goes nuts. He asks in mock confusion “What have I done?” and declares “Hey, I wasn’t that good.” in response to the ongoing applause, before finally starting off the song in earnest.
“Catch Me Now, I’m Falling” sounds great live, as does “Low Budget,” which may never have sounded better. “All Day and All of the Night” rocks – Dave Davies sounds inspired here. And the band teases “You Really Got Me” a few times before delivering an absolutely rocking version. But my favorite song on the double album is a ballad, “Celluloid Heroes.” A wistful lament about the early movie stars who had, by the late ’70’s, been largely forgotten or pushed into the background, it really speaks to everyone when they get old or become left behind, it really is a beautiful song, and even has a pretty intense guitar solo in it before settling back into the outro. Just beautiful.
The Kinks wrote some of the foundational songs of rock and roll and these versions make those songs so much more alive. Give it a spin.
