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American Tour '69
Tour by the Kinks
Associated albumArthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
Start date17 October 1969
End date8 December 1969
No. of shows44
The Kinks concert chronology
  • 1968 Swedish Tour
  • 1969 North American tour
  • 1970 North American tour

Background

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The Kinks, 1969. From left to right: Dave Davies, Ray Davies, John Dalton and Mick Avory.

In July 1965, the Kinks were informally blacklisted from performing in the United States by the American Federation of Musicians.[1] The circumstances that led to the ban are unclear – bandleader Ray Davies later attributed it to a combination of "bad luck, bad management, [and] bad behaviour".[2] It may have stemmed from a 2 July 1965 incident backstage of Dick Clark's show Where the Action Is, where Davies fought a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. It may also have arisen after the Kinks refused to perform at a San Francisco concert on 4 July 1965 after the promoter declined Davies's request that the band be paid upfront.[1]

The ban persisted until Davies negotiated its resolution in mid-April 1969.[3]

Promotional campaign

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External videos
video icon Reprise US Tour Spot Promo

In preparation for the tour and in light of The Village Green Preservation Society's favourable reviews,[4] Reprise Records and Warner Bros. Records initiated a promotional campaign in July 1969 to reestablish the band's commercial standing.[5] John Mendelsohn, whom Reprise hired after reading his favourable review of Village Green,[6] came up with the campaign's slogan "God Save The Kinks",[5] which referenced the refrain "God save the village green!" from the close of "The Village Green Preservation Society".[7] Reprise mailed press kits to journalists, radio program directors and disc jokeys which included assorted items, including a guide to the Kinks' recordings, a plastic bag with blades of grass from "Daviesland village green" and a promotional compilation album, Then Now and Inbetween.[8] In July or August, Reprise issued "The Village Green Preservation Society" backed with "Do You Remember Walter?" as a US single, though it failed to appear in any charts.[nb 1]

Tour

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All of a sudden we got our visas to go to the States. We weren't prepared – and [the American audience] hadn't seen us since "You Really Got Me" – and it was like a complete gap.[12]

Ray Davies, reflecting on the tour

In October 1969, the Kinks at long last returned to the American stage – though hardly in triumph; they were billed second to Spirit at the tour's Fillmore East debut. ... [T]he band was woefully out of tune, out of time, and evinced difficulty in remembering the words to their own [classic] British hits ... A painfully shy Ray Davies did his utmost to avoid the spotlight at all times, leaving Dave to handle the announcements and sing most of the songs ... At the time, however, few aficionados would admit to any shortcomings; the important thing was that the Kinks were back.[13]

– Journalist Nicholas Schaffner, 1982

Our first shows were a little awkward and we were a bit sloppy. It was hard to imagine what the audiences really thought of us when we played songs like "[The] Village Green [Preservation Society]", "[A] Well Respected Man", "Victoria", "Mr. Churchill Says", in the midst of "heavy" American bands playing stoned, with tedious over-indulgent solos that seemed to stretch long into the night. But most of our audiences were out of it. Stoned. So maybe they got more out of it than they expected.[14]

Dave Davies, 1996

The Kinks were billed second to Spirit at the tour's Fillmore East debut (former venue pictured, 2010).[13]
External videos: Live in San Francisco
29 November 1969
video icon "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains"
video icon "Big Sky"
video icon "You Really Got Me" / "All Day and All of the Night"

[The] reception to the band has been enormously gratifying ... I think the audiences are more knowledgeable now. When we came here before ... it was just image then ...[15]

Ray Davies interviewed by Rolling Stone, late November 1969

Set list

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The Kinks' set list varied over the course of the tour. Below are examples from two separate nights, according to Doug Hinman:[16]

Tour dates

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According to Doug Hinman:[17]

List of tour dates with date, city, country, venue
Date
(1969)
City Country Venue
17 October
(2 shows)
New York United States Fillmore East
18 October
(2 shows)
19 October Potsdam Clarkson College Gymnasium
23 October
(2 shows)
Boston The Boston Tea Party
24 October
(2 shows)
25 October
(2 shows)
31 October Chicago Kinetic Playground
7 November Detroit Grande Ballroom
8 November
12 November Cedar Rapids Veterans Memorial Coliseum
14 November Cincinnati Ludlow Garage
15 November
16 November
20 November
(2 shows)
Hollywood Whisky a Go Go
21 November
(2 shows)
22 November
(2 shows)
23 November
(2 shows)
24 November Irvine Crawford Hall, University of California, Irvine
26 November Antioch Exhibition Building, Contra Costa County Fairgrounds
27 November
(2 shows)
San Francisco Fillmore West
28 November
(2 shows)
29 November
(2 shows)
30 November
(2 shows)
1 December Portland Sports Center gymnasium, Reed College
2 December Davis Freeborn Hall, University of California, Davis
5 December Philadelphia Spectrum
6 December
(2 shows)
Toronto Canada The Hawk's Nest
7 December
(2 shows)
Stamford United States Stamford High School Auditorium
8 December New York Ungano's
  • Note: In February 2023, Doug Hinman wrote a plea on a Kinks fansite looking for shows missing from his 2004 day-by-day book. He wrote: "[The Kinks'] return to the US in October 1969 and prior to their return to the charts with Lola later in 1970 saw the band playing a number of small clubs as they weren't able to command a billing in larger venues, especially during the weekdays of their US tours, which resulted in almost invisible, unconfirmable dates. These shows were usually booked on short notice and weren’t advertised in any newspapers, at least any available online, likely only by handbills, newsletters or radio promotion and with no copies of itineraries either published or surviving, knowledge of the gigs have vanished to time."[18]

Notes

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  1. ^ Rogan writes the single was released in August 1969,[9] as do Hinman and Jason Brabazon in their self-published band discography.[10] Village Green's 50th anniversary release includes a replica of the 7" single, with notes printed on its sleeve stating it was originally released in July 1969.[11]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b Hinman 2004, p. 60.
  2. ^ Simpson, Dave (16 July 2015). "Ray Davies: 'I'm not the godfather of Britpop ... more a concerned uncle'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 26 July 2015.
  3. ^ Hinman 2004, p. 128.
  4. ^ Rogan 1984, p. 99; Kitts 2008, p. 146.
  5. ^ a b Hasted 2011, p. 147.
  6. ^ Mendelsohn 1985, p. 101.
  7. ^ Jovanovic 2013, p. 149.
  8. ^ Mendelsohn 1985, p. 101; Kitts 2008, p. 146; Hinman 2004, p. 130.
  9. ^ Rogan 1984, p. 197.
  10. ^ Hinman & Brabazon 1994, quoted in Davies 1996, p. 273.
  11. ^ Anon. 2018: "Originally released on Reprise Records, July 1969, as US 7" single 0847."
  12. ^ Hinman 2004, p. 133.
  13. ^ a b Schaffner 1982, p. 103.
  14. ^ Davies 1996, p. 121.
  15. ^ Hinman 2004, p. 135.
  16. ^ Hinman 2004, pp. 134, 135.
  17. ^ Hinman 2004, pp. 133–136.
  18. ^ Emlem, Dave. "News & Rumors". kindakinks.net. Retrieved 11 February 2024.

Sources

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[https://books.google.ca/books?id=xmZGAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA32&dq=%22Village%20Green%22%20Kinks&pg=PA32#v=onepage&q=%22Village%20Green%22%20Kinks&f=false 25,000 sales ]