Ray Davies at Kenwood House

As part of the English Heritage series of concerts at Kenwood House, Ray Davies played a one-off concert last night with the Crouch End Festival Choir to showcase his new record, 'The Kinks Choral Collection'. After the joy of seeing him in his musical, 'Come Dancing, last year, we had to go.

A hot, humid day suggested sandals, shorts and summer shirt, so, duly attired, off I go to get the tube to Archway and a bus to Kenwood. Things are never that simple. While I was sweltering on the tube, above ground Mother Nature decided that north London needed a clean (and, let's face it, it does) and promptly sent a deluge of rain. My train was stuck at Kings Cross for about 15 minutes and we were given garbled messages about trains being cancelled and stations closing due to floods. Half an hour late I got to Archway to meet Chris and the weather had changed, overcast and cooler, signs of the deluge everywhere, and me in sandals and shorts. O well. Then the only bus route to Kenwood decided it didn't want to play and the supposed buses every 8-12 minutes turned into only one in 35 minutes. But we got on and crawled round the leafy lanes of Hampstead to Kenwood.

Everything was soaked at Kenwood, of course, and an outdoors concert in the park started to sound amusing. We were late so joined the queues for food and beer - the only food available seemed to be burgers (so I just had an empty bun) and the queue for booze was huge so we settled for cans of diet coke from the burger stand. Chris spotted some see-through plastic bin bags so I grabbed some to sit on if the deck chairs were wet. The concert started while we still waiting to be served so we missed the first couple of songs by Ray and his band, but I yearned to be in front of the stage as I heard the opening song, 'I'm Not Like Everybody Else' drift over the rolling parklands. Buns and cans in hand, we scrambled through the wet grass to the deck chair area and found our seats (red and white striped deck chairs) and settled down for the concert.

So, after all these years, there was Ray Davies on stage in front of me with his band, not The Kinks, but they were playing Kinks songs and just as they started 'Dedicated Follower Of Fashioner' I felt the first drops from the sky. That was the signal for me to remember my past and use my punk sensibilities to develop my own fashion-wear from the plastic bin liner I'd grabbed earlier. Ripping down one side of the bin liner I made an all-weather see-through raincoat-with-hood proving that I am, indeed, a dedicated follower of fashion. So there I am, sitting on a deckchair on a hill in Kenwood park, head under a brolly and the rest of me covered by a big plastic bag, dressed in sandals and shorts, my back soaked from the accumulated drips from the brolly - it was all terribly laughable, trying to enjoy the concert, keep our spirits up and keep dry. And singing along to 'Sunny Afternoon' and 'A Well Respected Man'. But, with help from Mr Davies, we succeeded - I had a great time!

It must've been awful for Ray looking out on empty deck chairs as people scurried off to get out of the rain and a sea of umbrellas. This was his big public presentation of his new record and he was great, joking about the rain and encouraging us to sing along and well done to the brave folks down the front who ignored the rain and just danced and sang throughout the set.

The set started with Ray and his band playing Kinks classics and then on came the Crouch End Festival Choir to sing the songs from the new album. They then left and we were treated to a finale and an encore, and, ah, what a finale... The songs with the choir worked really well live, and I was singing along to the beat of raindrops on my brolly. I couldn't always see very well because of the enormous brolly in front of me but hey-ho. When he opened the 'Village Green' section Ray mentioned that the photo on the cover of the album was taken just up the hill from where the stage was.

I particularly liked the very tender version of 'Days' (Chris was singing along in Kirsty MacColl vocals), 'You Really Got Me' was electric, a marvellous 'Waterloo Sunset' and a storming 'All Day And All Of The Night' closed the choral part of the set. By that time we had to stand up and ignore the soaking rain and stop worrying about the sight-lines of people behind because of brollies. It's a good job we did because the first chords of a familiar song were strummed as the choir left the stage and Ray ripped into 'Lola', the first 7" single I ever got, way back in 1970.

Waving and saying goodnight, the band left the stage but came back immediately to play a fun version of 'Low Budget' before sending us away happy and smiling. I was smiling in particular because I'd finally seen Ray Davies sing 'Lola' on stage in front of me - all the damp frustrations of the evening were worth it for that one song. I still feel elated at the memory of singing along to 'Lola' with Ray - it's only been 39 years...

Then came the joy of getting home but rather than trust the bus and tube services in deluged north west London I ordered a taxi. To continue the traffic mayhem, the taxi seemed to get stuck in a traffic jam every few miles, particularly on Park Lane where something had obviously been happening in Hyde Park judging by the people streaming out of it. Ah well, I'd had a fun night, laughing in the rain, singing along to some classic songs and seeing a legend on stage. Um, next time, let's just play a boring old concert hall, eh, Ray?