Ray Davies at the Paramount

I got sixth row seats to see Ray Davies last night at the Paramount Theater. It was a fine show. He opened with "I'm Not Like Everyone Else" and ran through a buncha Kinks klassics like "Where Have All the Good Times Gone?," "Sunny Afternoon," "All Day and All of the Night" and "'Til the End of the Day."

Austin was the last stop on Davies' first U.S. tour with a band other than the Kinks, so everyone was in good rocking form and the crowd was appropriately raucous. I'd never seen a concert at the Paramount before. I thought the ornate movie palace was about as good a stand-in for a British music hall as we're likely to find in Austin. Perhaps Davies played 2-3 too many songs off his new solo album, Other People's Lives, but to me, he's one of those artists whose prolific career grants him an above-average degree of dispensation for indulgence of that sort.

Davies is doing an Austin City Limits taping on Monday. My friend Shazza offered me a ticket, but I can't go because I have band practice. Oh well. I guess it's better for someone who wasn't at the Paramount show to go.

By the way, this is the last ever blog entry from Beetsolonely's North American headquarters on Justin Lane. It's not quite the same thing as the last transmission from Corregidor, but it's noteworthy to me, at least. I hope to be up and running at the new house tomorrow. If not, there's always free wi-fi at Dairy Queen (!) just down the street.