Ray Davies is bossy. "Is that how you want to sound?" he asked the crowd as it sang along to "Sunny Afternoon," at the sold-out Beacon Theater Tuesday night. "Diction, diction," he reprimanded when the audience's enunciation got too mushy. No one minded being chastised. They were having too good a time at one hell of a rock and roll show. From the menacing first chords of "I'm Not Like Everybody Else," Davies was in great form, forever the vaudevillian showman inhabiting the elastic body of a rock star. The guy is simply one of rock's greatest songwriters: if he had wanted to he could mine his catalog all night long. Check out the set list stocked with classic Kinks:

I'm Not Like Everybody Else
Where Have All the Good Times Gone?
Well-Respected Man
Til the End of the Day
After the Fall
Dead End Street
The Tourist
20th Century Man
Working Man's Café
In a Moment
One More Time
Vietnam Cowboys
The Real World
No One Listens
Fancy
Sunny Afternoon
Come Dancing
So Tired
Set Me Free
All Day and All of the Night
You Really Got Me
Low Budget
Waterloo Sunset
Lola
Days
Imaginary Man
Victoria

Sometimes you just get lucky and a show is everything you hoped it would be. This was one of those special nights in New York. The intimate Beacon was the perfect venue for a revelatory performance by the former Kinks frontman. Lou Reed was in attendance and looked to be in a good mood (good for Lou Reed, anyway). And Davies responded to the love the crowd was giving him by just killing it. He’s damn spry for a guy who took a bullet in the leg, jumping around the stage with the energy of a much younger man. His voice stayed strong over two plus hours of singing. And Davies was in a pretty talkative mood. "I'm a songwriter, and as long I'm alive I’ll be writing songs," he told the crowd. He got genuinely wistful when he spoke about the Kinks and his brother, Dave Davies. He was nostalgic when he talked about the corporate takeover of Manhattan, specifically mourning the closing of Café la Fortuna on Manhattan's Upper West Side. There was something very moving when he dedicated "20th Century Man" to his father, who he described as being to the "left of Lenin." And when he sang, "When I gaze at Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise," he added "and I really am." The audience was too.