The Kinks - Soap Opera Live (2023)

LIVE VERSION OF RAY DAVIES FINEST THEATRICAL WORK Following some bad times in The Kinks camp generally, and in Ray Davies personal life more specifically - which included the break-up of his marriage and a drug overdose for which he was hospitalised, both in 1974 - Davies began another theatrical project, following up the rather poorly received albums, Preservation Act 1 & 2. Working with Granada Television, Davies wrote a musical called Starmaker. After a TV broadcast of such, with Ray Davies in the starring role and the Kinks as both back-up band and ancillary characters, the project eventually morphed into the concept album The Kinks Present a Soap Opera, released in May 1975, in which Ray Davies fantasised about what would happen if a rock star traded places with a "normal Norman" and took a 9 - 5 job. Reasonably successful and the recipient of reviews of a far higher calibre than its two predecessors, the band took the album out on the road in the summer of 75 and performed the entire record at New Victoria Theatre, London, on 14th June. Somewhat re-enacting the formula of the earlier television play, Ray once again played the protagonist, and received huge plaudits in the music press for doing so. The show was also recorded for live FM radio transmission, which further boosted the fortunes of the corresponding album. Not previously released, this stunning performance is now available on this CD for the first time, allowing fans to hear how the electric live version of the somewhat staid studio album came across.