How a live album resurrected The Kinks

The Kinks : Victoria

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On June 4, 1980 The Kinks released the 77-minute double live album, One For The Road. Mostly recorded in March of 1980 on six dates of an American tour, the album is a retrospective of the band's career with an emphasis on 1979's Low Budget, but going all the way back to "All Day And All of the Night" and "You Really Got me". For me, this album was an introduction to a band whose catalogue would reap so many rewarding listens. For many others, it would revive interest in the band and in Ray Davies' songwriting. One of the band's best studio albums, Give The People What They Want, would follow in the Summer of 1981.

Rolling Stone's Fred Schruers writes "Throughout the record, the Kinks vivisect their own classics to make them sound fresh," and credits Dave Davies with being the "single biggest factor in the resurgence of The Kinks as a hot live act".

The Kinks have gone over the top once more — Dave, particularly, sticking his neck out — and gained ground when they could have been left holding their entrails. Does this make 1980, at last, the band’s big fiscal year? After fifteen years of konspicuous Kinks kourage. I’d have to say that it doesn’t really matter.

Davis Hepworth was not as big a fan of the album. Here is his review for Smash Hits.