POP MUSIC REVIEW : Davies’ Solo Performance Has All the Kinks Out

Ray Davies has described himself in song as “one of the survivors,” but more than that, he is one of the great originals.

No other rocker presents as potent a combination of comic wit and timing, an actor’s hamminess, joy and ferocity in rocking out, and invention, warmth, insight and grace in song composition as Davies, the driving force of the Kinks since 1964.

Now we can add to those attributes a solid literary command. Davies’ concert Monday at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana (where he plays again tonight after a scheduled Hollywood show Tuesday) was his U.S. debut as a solo act as he moonlights from the Kinks on a brief tour to promote his characteristically offbeat autobiography “X-Ray.”

Backed by guitarist Peter Mathson, Davies offered much more than another fashionably “unplugged” evening. The two-hour performance was a fully realized one-man theatrical, coherently structured and beautifully paced as Davies astutely balanced songs old and new with reminiscences and readings from the book, which focuses on the early days of the Kinks.

Removed from the tumult of a Kinks show, the Englishman was free to lift some gratifying obscurities from his extensive trove of quiet, reflective, seldom-played gems. This was music so humane, and so fully and fervently felt in Davies’ performance, that to hear it was to be granted a privileged moment. In a warm, elegiacally satisfying climax, Davies lovingly etched two of his greatest achievements, “Days” and “Waterloo Sunset,” with a special mixture of pathos and dignity.

Ray Davies plays tonight at 8 at the Galaxy Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana . $45. (714) 957-0600.