Ray Davies - Ray Davies: Closing Ceremony Was 'Intimate'

Ray Davies: Closing Ceremony Was 'Intimate'

Ray Davies felt the Olympic Games closing ceremony was ''intimate.''

The Kinks frontman performed his track 'Waterloo Sunset' at the Olympic stadium in London to mark the end of the event on Sunday (12.08.12), and despite performing to a stadium of thousands and a TV audience of millions, he felt the shows had a personal feel.

He told BBC Radio 2: ''I certainly felt it. I must have been about a hundred yards from the nearest audience but it felt quite intimate.''

The musician thrilled the crowd by emerging from one of London's iconic black taxis before climbing onto the stage, but while the stunt looked good, it made him feel nervous.

He added: ''There was a delay in the stadium and people were panicking. They put me on the taxi to get me on stage and in the last minute my ear monitor wasn't working! I didn't know whether it was going to work, so I just got into a cab and prayed everything went okay.''

Ray is seen as a quintessentially English songwriter and he puts this down to his lyrics and the fact he always sings in his English accent.

He added: ''We sang in our accent and I think that's the important thing... everyone sang, I mean even the Beatles sang, with an American Twang. It was fashionable but when the Kinks came out with things like 'A Well Respected Man', 'Sunny Afternoon' and 'Waterloo Sunset' we sang in our twang.''