Pressure The video version wins and some of my reasoning for that may even be sound. A) Ok it's longer. B) There's tons of energy especially from Ray. C) Dave & Jim's synKronised bacKwards dancing finds them in Kahoots and is one too!
Lola Well I enjoy the visual and got used to seeing it years ago in fact so barring the first 1.08 I will run with it! Yes there is some added beef and gusto plus I really enjoy Dave's short interlocking licks and harmony vocals. The live addition of this (plus 1 or 2 other cuts from OFTR) to Come Dancing various video & CD comps really strengthens these Arista releases by adding a truly great track (that also everyone knows and largely loves) to some merely good to very good ones. I just realised i had a 1984 VHS Tape which must be where I first saw 2 or 3 clips from this 1980 footage. Years later when I could no longer play the tape i discovered a newer release with different artwork though a similar title which IIRC was the same so i hired it out from a shop and had someone make a DVD-R and I was set. Oh but I had no cover art hmm.......no problem, trim the VHS art and put it on the DVD case despite the misfit! Edit: And different art on the (Story Of The Kinks) label featuring some dark boots.
"Lola": this was one of the songs from One From the Road that got plenty of airplay back in the day on WBCN. It probably still gets some airplay on classic rock radio stations to this day. It was actually released as a single but didn't manage to crack #80 on the Hot 100 chart. As the other Avids have noted, it does have the live cliches that Ray favored to the reminder of the Kinks' live history that were probably once spontaneous but now fossilized into mundane moments, such as the "Day O" Yelp and the "I'm not going to play that" tease. I'm surprised that no one mentioned the "this is the disco version" quip as Mick speeds up the drumming. "Pressure": short, sharp and to the point, both on record and on video. The second song from Low Budget, which to me points out the chief flaw of this album that is shared with the live version of Showbiz, which is a few too many songs from the previous studio album. If Ray could have included a Sleepwalker or Misfits song or two, I think that the intended purpose of having the Kinks presented as a contemporary live act would be preserved without an overreliance to Low Budget. Finally, yes Avid Ajsmith (& how you're doing, by the way?) seeing those glimpses of vintage Kinks footage was tantalizing. It was great that they finally came out with that Shindig compliation, as well as all the other stuff that has come out in dribs and drabs. Speaking of B&W, here's a clip from Dick Clark's Where The Action Is that's an original production video. Even though it's 57 years old, it looks like it was shot yesterday, it's so crisp:
I think the flow of the album has been well thought out (to this point). I don’t know whether it parallels their real live set or not but it’s been highly enjoyable so far. ‘Pressure’ isn’t a favorite of mine but the tour is supposed to be promoting ‘Low Budget’ so it fits, and is in a perfect slot.
It's an RCA comp so they are limited to those albums. That said, the word I would use is - odd. It's a double so they at least they went big, but the fact they still left off some key tracks from this run of albums while adding some lesser ones is a head scratcher. Missing key tracks: 20th Century Man, (A) Face In The Crowd, and most notably and conspicuously, No More Looking Back. Possibly Mirror Of Love or Salvation Road since it was a double and they had room. But yet they put on Maximum Consumption, Baby Face, Motorway and a couple other questionable inclusions at the expense of the ones missing. And since it's RCA, that Lola has to be the ShowBiz epilogue we always point out since that's the only version RCA had to license. So yeah - odd.
Looking at the setlists it would be really difficult to decipher that, they seem rather random to some extent. Very varied, and only a very mild vision of a specific order.
Lola is sort of played out for me at this point (if past history is any indication, I'll leave it aside for a couple of years and then repeat it obsessively until I've played it out again). But a good version here and the tease is cute. Pressure seems like it was written for this. Live & loud & shouty & tight. Not having seen much live footage, Ray's cliche arena gestures, chest-poundings, pointing at the audience, etc are deeply adorable, awkward & endearing.
Intro/Lola Nothing really to add. Alreafy an iconic staple of the katalog that somehow grew even further in stature as a live performance. Pressure If we really deconstruct this song, it rapidly becomes apparent that it is on of the lesser entries in the Kinks kanon. But that sure doesn't keep it from being a hot little interlude in the live set. No complaints.
Lola: As others have noted, this track was all over the radio (at least in the Northeast where I lived, as I would hear it on all of the rock stations (we had about four good ones) plus if I would put on WAAF out of Massachusetts I would hear it as well. I think it’s a great version and it refocused a lot of attention on what really is an outstanding song. I only ever saw the kinks once, and that was after this version was released (on the GTPWTW tour). They did do the false start and “we’re not gonna play that 9one tonight” routine, but it didn’t bother me at the time because I enjoyed it from the live album. I still enjoy mimicking Ray every time I hear it. Perhaps if I had heard it over and over at live concerts I might’ve tired of it, but in this case I just think it’s a fun presentation of the song that deserved to be recorded for posterity. I love the studio version, but I will take this live version any day of the week. Pressure: Clearly I am a fan of the low budget album, and I like this song in its studio incarnation. As others have mentioned, this live short revved up version does a great job of snapping people out of the Lola mindset. I like it and think it was well placed on the album. I couldn’t care less that they dropped some of the lyrics, I think it really benefits from being not much more than a minute and a half of high-octane energy. As an aside, I agree that dropping one of the low budget songs and substituting something off of sleepwalker (my vote would be jukebox music) would have improved this release, but I think that’s nitpicking, I think it’s a fantastic album as it is.
Interestingly I can't see anywhere they even played it on the 79/80 tour of the Low Budget time frame.
I was going to post this later, but as it has come up a couple of times... I have been somewhat scouring the setlistfm website to try and make sense of the tour and the layout of the sets and the songs they played and all the rest of it..... and whatever I wrote here is sort of like an extended One For The Road I would love to see, and based on setlistfm ... and depending on whether they kept the tapes or whatever, seems it would be possible Extended Album Possibilities . Although I love the album as it is, I could see an extended album of the tour working really well. The band played a wealth of songs over the period of time this album was recorded, and although I completely understand the choices they made.... and album called The 79/80 Tour Diary or something could work really well. It seems the band has given the Super Deluxe thing a miss, which is a terrible shame from my perspective, but hopefully one day we'll see some of those 5.1 mixes that were listed on the sacd's. Perhaps when it comes around we could get a full uncut video of the concert here, restored to running order.... but we'll see. I could see an extended Low Budget Tour album looking something like this. Side One Introduction Sleepwalker Life On The Road Hardway Where Have All The Good Times Gone Lola/with intro Pressure Side Two Catch Me Now I'm Falling National Health A Well Respected Man Death Of A Clown Sunny Afternoon Misfits Side Three 20th Century Man Alcohol Tired Of Waiting Stop Your Sobbing Prince Of The Punks Attitude Side Four A Rock And Roll Fantasy Low Budget Superman A Gallon Of Gas Permanent Waves Side Five Celluloid Heroes All Day And All Of The Night Slum Kids In A Space Live Life Side Six Till the End Of The Day Money Talks Dedicated Follower Of Fashion You Really Got Me Victoria David Watts Obviously without hearing the versions they did, ordering them is a little difficult, and without knowing the bulk of the times, it would be hard to lay it out correctly for a record ... but I assume they would fit on 2cd's, and that's how I would get it anyway
From this point on Jukebox Music is MIA on Kinks tour’s. I don’t believe the Kinks ever played it again, maybe as a one-off on a random night but that’s about it. Which is a shame as it’s a great upbeat song, my favorite track on Sleepwalker.
"Lola" and "Pressure" Both of these songs would have been enjoyable in person. I like the video clips so you can see the energy of the band, but I would have no desire to listen to either song on the album frequently. "Lola" suffers from over exposure like many other bands most popular songs. The song that bands feel like they have to play every night. Personally, I would not be upset or disappointed if a band didn't play their big hits. I'm a fan of when a band plays unexpected deeper cuts. I would have replaced "Lola" with "Nuclear Love". That would have really made the fans happy. "Pressure" is a blast, and it's fun to watch Ray and the band get into it. It's just another case of where I prefer the studio versions.
To be honest, it strikes me most full blooded Kinks fans would probably get into that.... When we think of the songs these guys did play live.... I don't think there's anything they wouldn't have done .. and to some degree the fans would have gotten into it anyway.... As I never got to see them live, I almost resent people who did, and only wanted Lola lol
Having seen The Kinks perform Juke Box Music on a few occasions, I believe I might have a clue as to why the song was unceremoniously dropped from their concert set lists: Ray voiced the track too high in pitch for him to sing it live reliably. I can only recall a single performance (I’m pretty sure it was one of the early ’77 Santa Monica Civic shows my girlfriend and I attended) where Ray tried singing the lead himself… it was a train wreck. On every other occasion, Dave handled the lead vocal—and I always got the impression Ray was irritated by that phenomenon. Perhaps, he was jealous or just thought it wasn’t how the record sounded but it always seemed like he couldn't wait for the song to be over. Dave singing along on Lola, etc. never seemed to trouble him but Juke Box Music appeared to be a different deal. Just my shiny 2¢ ~Huck
I only got to see Ray in 2008. I had to look up the set list to recall what he played. As expected, he closed with "Lola". Here was the set list: I Need You Where Have All The Good Times Gone After The Fall I'm Not Like Everybody Else Till the End Of the Day The Tourist Dedicated Follower Of Fashion Apeman Dead End Street Sunny Afternoon Harry Rag Workingman's Cafe Morphine Song Hymn For A New Age See My Friends Vietnam Cowboys 20th Century Man Tired Of waiting For You Set Me Free All Day and All of the Night You Really Got Me encore: Days Lola Pretty fantastic setlist with a mix of classics and his newer solo material. It was a great concert and Ray was in fine voice. It was in Seattle at the Showbox (SODO)
Here's the setlist from the last time I saw Ray, March 28, 2006 at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston, MA: Ray Davies Setlist at Orpheum Theatre, Boston I remember this concert well because I went w/my friend Barrence and although we already had great seats on the floor, one of the staff people recognized him & put us right at the second row!
