Random Obscurities: When The Kinks Warmed Up for The Beatles

There is a number of stories floating around in the dirty waters, along the rock n’ roll canals, but as with so many tales from the sixties, told and re-told, it’s hard to tell truth from fact.

This story takes us back before curtain call at an early Kinks show, where they’ve found their way onto a bill that has The Beatles as headliners.

It’s a few minutes before show time and Ray Davies, his brother Dave and two other Muswell Hillbillies are ready to prove their worth before a hysterical Beatle-manic audience, when suddenly, John Lennon appears and starts teasing Ray by gently stroking his guitar’s tuning pegs, reminding him who the audience is there for.

When, speaking to Mojo years later, Ray recalled the incident.

“We’d played with The Beatles in Bournemouth and John Lennon made a remark that we were only there to warm up for them. But we got a great reaction to ‘You Really Got Me’, Davies recalled. “It was an early validation that we had something that stood up for us, like being bullied in school and having something that was bigger than the bully, it was that sort of feeling.”

As a Beatle John could hardly have felt threatened by these new claimers of the pop throne, ‘cause no one beats The Beatles, not then, not now – and no one ever will. In fact, John was probably only full of admiration for Davies, but like with most young people, unwilling to admit it.

However, years later, John Lennon was seen in a club, where he kept on asking the DJ to play the new Kinks single, ‘Wonder Boy’, over and over again.

Take a listen and you’ll understand why!

Read Ray Davies review of the Beatles LP, Revolver HERE.

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Words: Anders Knudsen