Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on May 5, 2006 18:47:19 GMT
20,000 Hear Doors Give Rock Concert In a Packed Garden
The Doors, one of the country’s most popular rock groups and the possessor of the current hit record “Touch Me,” played before a sellout audience of 20,000 last night at Madison Square Garden.
Rock concerts in the Garden and places of similar sizes are always a dubious enterprise, and this was no exception. The The microphone system made the group-Jim Morrison, vocalist; Robbie Krieger, guitarist; Ray Manzarek, organist, and John Densmore, drums-sound like the music was being played through a broken transistor radio.
It was hard to hear the lyrics, and a large measure of the Doors’s value is based on those lyrics. To many in the audience, the performers were a speck in the distance, and this was infortunate since much of the group’s popularity is based on the onstage theatrics of Jim Morrison.
Mr. Morrison has borrowed freely from the Elvis Presley bag of sneers, grunts and moans, and has invented quite a few of his own. Last night he seemed to be using all of them.
The Doors are very conscious of the relation between rock and pure theater. They incorporate elements of pure theater in their act: stances, motions and dramatic gestures not often seen in a rock theater.
Of course, if these could have been seen, the concert might have been more effective. As it turned out, the Doors were good despite the shortcomings of the arena.
They sang their best-known songs: “Touch Me,” “When the Music’s Over,” “Back Door Man,” “Light My Fire,” “Love Me Two Times” and “Spanish Caravan.”<br>In concert and on record, the Doors successfully create hard rock entertainment and lyrical drama in a way that is purely their own. Few groups match their ability to make rock music sound eery and magical. Few lyricists can match Mr. Morrison’s ability to create effective, often terrifying, images. One of the group’s messages, that music, rock music, is the special friend of the young, was not missed by the audience.
By MIKE JAHN
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Saturday, January 25, 1969
The Doors, one of the country’s most popular rock groups and the possessor of the current hit record “Touch Me,” played before a sellout audience of 20,000 last night at Madison Square Garden.
Rock concerts in the Garden and places of similar sizes are always a dubious enterprise, and this was no exception. The The microphone system made the group-Jim Morrison, vocalist; Robbie Krieger, guitarist; Ray Manzarek, organist, and John Densmore, drums-sound like the music was being played through a broken transistor radio.
It was hard to hear the lyrics, and a large measure of the Doors’s value is based on those lyrics. To many in the audience, the performers were a speck in the distance, and this was infortunate since much of the group’s popularity is based on the onstage theatrics of Jim Morrison.
Mr. Morrison has borrowed freely from the Elvis Presley bag of sneers, grunts and moans, and has invented quite a few of his own. Last night he seemed to be using all of them.
The Doors are very conscious of the relation between rock and pure theater. They incorporate elements of pure theater in their act: stances, motions and dramatic gestures not often seen in a rock theater.
Of course, if these could have been seen, the concert might have been more effective. As it turned out, the Doors were good despite the shortcomings of the arena.
They sang their best-known songs: “Touch Me,” “When the Music’s Over,” “Back Door Man,” “Light My Fire,” “Love Me Two Times” and “Spanish Caravan.”<br>In concert and on record, the Doors successfully create hard rock entertainment and lyrical drama in a way that is purely their own. Few groups match their ability to make rock music sound eery and magical. Few lyricists can match Mr. Morrison’s ability to create effective, often terrifying, images. One of the group’s messages, that music, rock music, is the special friend of the young, was not missed by the audience.
By MIKE JAHN
THE NEW YORK TIMES, Saturday, January 25, 1969