Why Ray Davies felt “bullied” by John Lennon
Rivalry is something of an inevitability within the music industry. For as long as there have been bands, those bands have been in competition with each other, and even names as colossal as The Beatles and The Kinks were butting heads back in the 1960s.
The Fab Four were, of course, on top of the world by the time the mid-1960s arrived, unparalleled both in terms of commercial prowess and songwriting skill. They were also all in their early-to-mid 20s at the time, and that dangerous mix of intense success and relative youth inevitably caused a degree of arrogance for the band. That arrogance eventually came to a head during a fateful performance in Bournemouth, when they came up against the new wave of British rock.
Topping a bill that featured a young Adrienne Posta and fellow actor-come-singer Mike Berry, The Beatles’ show at the Bournemouth Gaumont in August 1964 wasn’t meant to present many challenges for the group. What they hadn’t counted on, however, was a relatively unknown band named The Kinks.
Having only released two singles – neither of which had been hits – by the time that they appeared on that Bournemouth billing, it is fair to say that not much was expected of Ray Davies’ outfit, least of all as far as The Beatles were concerned. “We’d played with The Beatles in Bournemouth, and John Lennon made a remark that we were only there to warm up for them,” Davies once recalled to Mojo.
In fairness to Lennon, The Kinks were likely booked as an intended warm-up, but things didn’t quite pan out that way. Unbeknownst to The Beatles’ songwriter, or anybody in the audience, Davies and the gang were only two days away from releasing what would soon become the defining sound of swinging sixties London: ‘You Really Got Me’.
As well as being the song that first established The Kinks in the collective consciousness and inspired the entire future of alternative rock and what would soon become known as ‘punk’, ‘You Really Got Me’ also became the stand-out song of that night in Bournemouth.
“We got a great reaction to ‘You Really Got Me’,” Davies remembered.
“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,” he added. “It was that sort of feeling.” There weren’t many bands in 1964 who could claim to have truly upstaged The Beatles, but by the time their set ended at the Gaumont, they might as well have been the main act.
Seemingly, being upstaged left a lasting impression on John Lennon – namely, one of bitterness. So much so that, when the two bands met again the following year, on a bill which also boasted the likes of The Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield, Lennon made a point of hitting back against The Kinks.
Davies’ group, having been in Antwerp that same day, arrived at the show later than expected, exhausted and without any sound engineers still in the building. Their set was, to put it kindly, disastrous, and Lennon reportedly retorted, “That was for Bournemouth,” when the exceedingly tired band left the stage.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.