Posted by Matt Kivel

A semi-circle of acoustic guitars surrounded Ray Davies as he took to the stage  with side-guitarist Bill Shanley. The pair plowed through a number of early Kinks tunes, with Shanley improvising loosely. Unfortunately, Shanley’s busy blues solos and subtle harmonies only seemed to distract from the lyrics and core melodies.
There weren’t too many musical surprises — aside from the 1965 raga-inflected“See My Friends” and a brief snippet of the ebullient “Have a Cuppa Tea” — but  Davies’ feistiness and unrelenting sense of humor kept the crowd’s attention and illicited a good deal of participation throughout the evening.
At the Grove Tuesday, Davies performed:

I Need You / Where Have all the Good Times Gone / Till the End of the Day / After the Fall / I’m Not Like Everybody Else / The Tourist / Dedicated Follower of Fashion / Sunny Afternoon / Dead End Street / Ape Man / The Working Man’s Café / The Morphine Song / Hymn For a New Age / Vietnam Cowboys / A Well Respected Man / See My Friends / 20th Century Man / Celluloid Heroes / Tired of Waiting For You / Set Me Free / All Day and All of the Night / Days / Lola