While his peers The Beatles are turning a new generation of music fans on to their music via a videogame and The Who are prepping for a Super Bowl halftime performance, Ray Davies [ tickets ] has opted for a more organic and subtle way to celebrate the songs of The Kinks.

The erstwhile Kinks frontman recently released "The Kinks Choral Collection," featuring the 65-year-old Davies reinterpreting Kinks classics backed by a choir. On his current tour, Davies is bringing the concept to the stage with local vocal ensembles in select cities. At the ornate Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday (11/15), the results were nothing less than stunning.

On occasion, over-enthusiastic rock fans are known to liken certain transcendental performances to a religious experience or proclaim it "Godhead." Davies began the night's second set with the 40-year-old Kinks' song "Shangri-La" quietly with his lone vocal and an acoustic guitar, but when the 29-voice, black-clad Vox Society Choir kicked in, it sounded as close as you can get to God outside a place of worship--or perhaps Davies and company had transformed the Orpheum into the Church of the Kinks where he held his loyal congregation's rapt attention during the hour-long choral segment.

Rather than immediately unveiling the main attraction, though, Davies began the show accompanied by guitarist Bill Shanley with a segment that might be best described as "sing-along with Ray," as the affable host invited the audience to join in on Kinks' classics such as "Apeman" and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion." In a playful mood, Davies sang a line from the latter while impersonating Johnny Cash and revealed the 1966 hit "Sunny Afternoon" was written during a particularly dark period of his life, which he's forced to revisit each time he performs it, but he nonetheless obliged.

Joined by a crack four-piece band that included Shanley on guitar and one-time Kinks keyboardist Ian Gibbons, Davies delved into Kinks hits and obscurities as well as his more recent solo work. Despite the fact that the material was written decades apart, some songs had a common thread. His 2005 solo effort "After the Fall" and the Kinks classic "Where Have All the Good Times Gone" sounded like a tonic for hard times with messages of desperation, salvation, and hope. The first half of the show concluded on an upbeat note with "Come Dancing," the jaunty 1983 hit about his sister's Saturday night activities, highlighted by Gibbons' carnival-like keyboards.

While the opening segment was certainly entertaining, the choral section took Davies' performance and songs to a new level. On the album, the slower, more introspective material is better suited to the choral arrangements, while the rockers tend to sound a bit too campy. In concert, however, both types of songs worked. "Village Green," "Picture Book," "Big Sky," "Do You Remember Walter?" and "Johnny Thunder," a suite of songs from the Kinks' 1968 album "The Village Green Preservation Society"--which Davies self-effacingly called "one of the most successful flops ever written"--sounded as they were originally composed with the co-ed choral arrangement in mind.

Before launching into "You Really Got Me," the Kinks first and best-known hit, Davies teased, "If you don't know this song, you really shouldn't be here this evening," before adding, "You've heard it before, but you've never heard it like this." The version that followed--with The Kinks' trademark crunchy guitar riffs and Davies' vocals colliding with the angelic choir--was bombastic, a bit corny, and totally over the top, but somehow it worked.

In all, the choral set was nothing but highlights, including a completely a cappella rendering of "See My Friends," and rearranged versions of such Kinks' favorites as "Days," "Waterloo Sunset," and "Celluloid Heroes," all of which worked surprisingly well in the choral format.

The choral segment was so stunning that when Davies returned with just the band for a rousing take of "Low Budget," it seemed anti-climatic, though Davies did manage to throw into some sage advice. In an attempt to awaken the crowd one final time, Davies noted slyly, "When I go, the game's over," perhaps sensing his own mortality following his 2004 shooting after a mugging and the stroke that felled his brother, Dave. Those in the New York area are certainly advised to catch Davies with the Dessoff Chamber Choir next week, but even sans choir with his band or solo, Davies remains a rock-and-roll treasure you should catch while you can.