The Doors In Concert!

[ensenada]

TheWallsScreamedPoetry said:

I think also its got a lot to do with the 'times' themselves..
Music is more commercial than ever nowadays and manufactured bands appear every week......the days of driving arround in a van looking for a gig in a pub are long gone....now bands set up websites and send CDs to record companies.
30 years ago we had so many bands who were living on a bag of chick peas desperate to get noticed.
Jim so broke he slept on a roof or on the beach....
does not happen nowadays....Neil Young said best it in Crime In The City
The artist looked at the producer
The producer sat back
He said, What we have got here
Is a perfect track
But we don't have a vocal
And we don't have a song
If we could get
these things accomplished
Nothin' else could go wrong.
So he balanced the ashtray
As he picked up the phone
And said, Send me a songwriter
Who's drifted far from home
And make sure that he's hungry
Make sure he's alone
Send me a cheeseburger
And a new Rolling Stone.

Thats what made so many good artists in the 60s....a hunger.....not just for food (as many were destitute before they found fame) but to prove thier talent.
That hunger resulted in some amazing 60s and 70s gigs and albums.
Hunger like that does not exist much nowadays......there are so many outlets for artists due to the Net, TV and record companies desperately trying to find the next big thing......
We will NEVER see the likes of the music in the 60s and 70s again.....there will never be another Jim as its practically impossible to find anyone that hard up....

good point, its the attitude of the artists these days i guess. Things come more easier to everyone these days, live is that little bit easier. when bands need a certain sound they created it electronically etc. i suppose like you say most artists now dont hunger for much as they have it ready made, like the throw away culture we have these days.
All though there must be struggling bands out there, skint who are desperate to be noticed. I know someone at the gym who makes his own music etc, he has sent tapes to radio, companies etc and even gone to new york to try there. in thisprocess he met badly drawn boy and gets on with him, but still no break through...waffling now! ;D

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The lights dimmed. We climbed up the steep ladder at the back of the stage and took our places. I tightened the top skin of my snare drum nearest where my left-hand stick came down. The impact always loosened the lug. Looking over, I saw Robby stooped down to untangle his cords. Jim double-checked us with furtive glances over his shoulder, then coiled around the microphone. Ray hovered over his keyboards, glanced up at me and - "LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, THIS IS HUMBLE HARV FROM KHJ - BOSS RADIO. HERE THEY ARE . . . THE DOORS."

Ray's hands crashed down on the keys of his Vox organ and the first chords of "When the Music's Over" sliced through me and seemed to take the breath away from the crowd. Into the suspended silence I began to jab at my bass drum, snare, hi-hat: boom, snap-ba rap bap hssst boom . . . brap! I was tightening the tension in the room with every beat.

Then I came to an abrupt halt. And I waited. And waited. This was one of my moments. I remained silent until the tension built to the breaking point and then finally released the sorcerer:

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT

CRASH!

And like an animal in excruciating pain, Jim was jolted into his scream just as Robby hit a wailing, anguishing bass note. Jim cried out,
Eeeeeee -aaaahhhhhhhh,
When the music's over
When the music's over
Yeaahhh
When the music's over
Turn out the lights

Then came the dark silence. I twirled my drumsticks, held them over my head, and smashed the cymbals as Robby roared into his guitar solo that sounded like a snake being choked. "EEEEAAAAAHHHHH!" came another gut-wrenching scream, then the angry scatting, the mumbled obscenities.

Jim's rebel yell ignited the band. Riffs exploded off Robby's guitar; Ray went into his hypnotic head-bobbing trance, and I drove the soloist, pushing him to the edge. Always the edge. The acoustics weren't much better with a full house, but the crowd seemed to worship us. Did they get off on our sense of danger? Or was it the absurdly high stage? Whatever it was, as I watched Jim teasing the crowd I realized that it was all happening! We were making the transition from dives to concerts. I wanted it all. We finished the first song to a fair round of applause, but the audience was staring at us, especially Jim, and I knew we had made a lasting impression. It was in their faces. Robby started "Back Door Man" with that low, mean guitar lick, and I came in with fat-back drums.

You could tell that Jim loved to sing the blues, those rural blues. It was the most dramatic way he could deal with his pain and the most effective release valve for pent-up rage. JESUS CHRIST!!! Jim just fell off the stage! The audience has broken his fall and they're trying to push him back up! The stage is so high they can't quite get him back up there. We continue vamping and Jim finally scrambles over the edge and grabs the mike. The audience lets out a cheer and I'm laughing so hard the tempo is dragging.

We finished our five-song set (ten to fifteen minutes per song) and I mimicked Ed Sullivan on the way back to the dressing rooms.

"What a shew! . . . what a shoe! It was an echo chamber, but the audience got off."

"Pretty neat, pretty good," Jim agreed.

From Riders On The Storm by John Densmore

[ensenada]

You could tell that Jim loved to sing the blues, those rural blues. It was the most dramatic way he could deal with his pain and the most effective release valve for pent-up rage. JESUS CHRIST!!! Jim just fell off the stage! The audience has broken his fall and they're trying to push him back up! The stage is so high they can't quite get him back up there. We continue vamping and Jim finally scrambles over the edge and grabs the mike. The audience lets out a cheer and I'm laughing so hard the tempo is dragging.

I heard once that jim was the first to invent crowd diving, could this be true? I am sure the fall wasnt intentional ;D

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

JUL 27, 1969 -Seattle Pop Festival

This three-day festival is the largest event of
its kind in the Northwest to date and attracts a
crowd of more than 50,000 from all over the West.
Alcohol consumption plays a very prominent role, with one
truckload of wine selling out within minutes, and this had
an undeniable influence on the interaction between
audience and performers.
The Doors are already
developing an intense aversion to outdoor performances,
maintaining that the open-air venues greatly diminish the
energy and intimacy that an interior environment can
provide. Thus, their performance this evening at the
Seattle Pop Festival proves something of a challenge. The
dramatic differences between it and the previous week's
superb Aquarius Theater shows lend credence to the
band's convictions about appropriate venues for their
style of performance. Jim Morrison arrives by
helicopter in the afternoon and immediately retreats into a
Cadillac provided by Gram Parsons of the Flying Burrito
Brothers, where he remains until show time. During the
Doors' performance, Morrison continuously ridicules the
audience, prompting them to shout obscenities back at the
stage. The Doors open with a strong introduction to
"When the Music's Over," but it isn't long into the
song before Morrison begins his diatribe. At its
conclusion, an irate fan heaves a cup at him, and Morrison
gives him the finger to audience cheers. As the show
progresses, the band runs through a spiritless version of
"Light My Fire", and then the antagonistic interchange
with the audience resumes. After someone hurls a
particularly abusive insult toward the stage, Morrison
ferociously responds, calling him a "big-mouthed bastard,"
and demanding that he say it again. "Get it all out,
Morrison continues, "all the little hatreds, everything
that's boiled up inside you. Let me have it." As the
predictable "Fuck you" retaliations arise from the crowd,
Morrison sarcastically belittles their response, "That's
the word I wanted to hear. That's the very little
word." The band continues with "Five to One," but the
audience has become icily unreceptive. The Doors conclude
with an erratic version of "The End," and during it
Morrison drifts into some of the developing lyrics from
"Maggie M'Gill." At the conclusion, Morrison silently
strikes a crucifixion pose under the red spotlight, and
maintains it long after the applause from the bewildered
audience has died down. He finally exits the stage to an
awaiting helicopter as the next act prepares to go on.
(Quotes from Edd Jeffords, "Doors At Seattle," Poppin
magazine, 1969)
Later, Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant
comments on Morrison's performance: "We only played with the Doors once, in Seattle, and it seemed like he was screwed up. Morrison went on stage and said 'Fuck you all' which didn't really do anything except make a few
girls scream. Then he hung on the side of the stage and
nearly toppled into the audience, and did all those
things that I suppose were originally sexual things but
as he got dirtier and more screwed up, they just
became bizarre. He was just miles above everyone's head.
It seemed that he realized the Doors were on the way
down. He went on stage with that opinion and
immediately started saying all those strange things which
nobody could get into." ("Robert Plant," New Musical
Express, Apr. 11, 1970)
The Doors were promptly
followed by Led Zeppelin at about 11:30 p.m.
The Doors On The Road

[ensenada]

wow, just goes to show how angry jim became towards the end. but atleast he did it with the superb style that only jim can. he did seem hell bent on turning the fans against them and undoing what they worked so hard to create. with this sort of behaviour, to be fair its no bloody wonder they wernt invited to woodstock! ;D

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Jan 24, 1969 Madison Square Garden

The Doors give one performance at 8:30 p.m. to a
sell-out crowd. The esteemed bass player Harvey Brooks and
a small orchestra appear with the band.
The colossal Madison Square Garden, with a seating capacity of twenty thousand, was at that time an exceptionally difficult venue to perform in.
It featured a revolving
stage, which aggravated the Garden's already horrendous
acoustics. The Doors performance suffers despite Vince
Treanor and the equipment crew's efforts to dampen the hall's massive reverberations.
Regardless of these
problems, this show is a resounding success.
The Doors put
on a fabulous performance, and Morrison's presence
is electric. The stage is awash in a constant deluge
of instamatic flashes that give the whole show a
bizarre strobelike effect. The Doors exit the stage in a
deafening roar of appreciation from their hard-core New
York following.
Note: When the legendary Blind Faith performed there six months later, the acoustics
were so abominable that large portions of the audience
could barely discern what was being played. Frustrated
and disappointed fans finally stormed the stage at
the conclusion of the show.

Describing the event, Cash Box elaborates: "As
matters turned out, none were disappointed at the show.
It may well have been the rapport which uplifted the
quality of this show, or the electricity that is created
between a worshiping, yet contained, audience and its
object of affection. In any case, the crowd was
Morrison's - to an extreme that called for special police
protection; and, in return, he was theirs."

New York Times critic Mike Jahn comments: "It was hard to hear the lyrics, and a large measure of the Doors' value is based on those lyrics. To many in the audience,
the performers were a speck in the distance, and this
was unfortunate since much of the group's popularity
is based on the onstage theatrics of Jim Morrison.
Few groups match their ability to make rock music
sound eerie and magical. Few lyricists can match
Morrison's ability to create effective, often terrifying,
images. As it turned out, the Doors were good despite the shortcomings of the arena."
According to Variety: "The Doors made a triumphant return to New York Friday night
after many months in absentia. The Doors, performing
with an orchestra and led by Jim Morrison, one of the
major personalities in rockdom, remain one of the more
bizarre and theatrical turns in the idiom. Some of the
material was familiar, but crisply
executed."
Set-list:Touch Me:The Soft Parade:Tell All the
People:Love Me Two Times:Who Scared You:Spanish
Caravan:Wild Child:Light My Fire:Back Door Man:The
Devil Is a Woman:Five to One:When the Music's
Over

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

July 15th 1967 - Anaheim
Both the Doors and the Jefferson Airplane perform superb sets. At the late show, Jim Morrison is in highand mischievous spirits. Although his voice is hoarse and his singing occasionally off pitch, he seemsintent on delivering a powerful show. Morrison is characteristically intent on pulling out all the stops, frequently engaging in peppery interactions with the audience and provocatively flicking his lit cigarette butts at the crowd.

July 13th 1968 - Vancouver
After two relatively composed opening songs, Jim Morrison flies into high gear, assaulting his microphone and steering the band into a fresh, dynamic, and wildly energetic show. Morrison magnetizes the capacity crowd of thirteen thousand with an engaging series of screams and chants, and leads off several songs with his improvisational poetry. During the finale, hundreds of people vault onto the stage, overwhelming security personnel who vigorously try to restrain the crowd. Their efforts at clearing the stage are futile; there are just too many people. Those who manage to squeeze through the human barricade surround Morrison in a circle of wild enthusiasm and insane dancing.

One Vancouver paper remarks: "An orgy of experience is the only way to describe the result. A great rainbow ball was thrown back and forth between the two pinnacles which the Doors use to express themselves. The first is their rather conventional if effective instrumental combination of organ, guitar, bass, piano and drums. The second can only be described as a shattered and ragged piece of glass, being used by an unknown force to gouge and scrape a peep hole through other doors which hide that which is unearthly, evil or obscene. This cutting edge takes human form in the being which is vocalist Jim Morrison. This young man retains every possible animal characteristic present before the erosion of a million years of evolution, while remaining obscure and intangible like a spirit not really of this world at all,who mocks as he reveals. Morrison laughs the hollow laugh of the insane. He burps, moans, beckons and shrieks and then as the rest of the group takes a solo,he is gone, only to reappear in a sudden, spreadeagled lunge from the shadows to strangle the cold steel of the microphone. He is rebellion in perpetuity,and his spell is completely cast upon his audience."
Brian McLeod, "The Doors open upon orgy of experience,"Vancouver Sun, July 1968

July 23, 24 1967 - Seattle Eagles Auditorium
These first two shows at Eagles are extraordinarily intense, praised at the time as being two of the most dramatic and vividly cathartic rock performances to have ever hit Seattle-so much so that even the tuning up between songs conveys a dark and foreboding air. Before the Doors' set, Jim Morrison joins the P.H. Phactor Jug Band onstage for several songs.
Tom Robbins makes these observations for Helix magazine in Seattle: "The intensity begins the moment they stalk on stage and it doesn't let up until the purge is over, the catharsis is complete. Even between numbers,there is no relaxation-no chit-chat, no horsing around. Like the great actors of Japan, the Doors project all the more intensity when they are silent.
The Doors are carnivores in a land of musical vegetarians.Their craftsmanship is all the more astonishing in light of their savagery. They have the ensemble tightness of the Juilliard String Quartet-but their grandeur is not of the intellect but of warm red blood. Their talons, fangs and folded wings are seldom out of view, but if they leave us crotch-raw and exhausted, at least they leave us aware of our aliveness. And of our destiny. The Doors scream into the darkened auditorium what all of us in the underground are whispering more softly in our hearts: We want the world and we want it.....NOW!"
Tom Robbins, Helix, member of the Underground Press Syndicate, July 1967
from the Shaw book The Doors On The Road

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Apr 10, 1970 - Boston Arena

The Doors' Boston shows go well, although the first show is not nearly as impressive as the second.Morrison precedes their raw, gutsy version of "Roadhouse Blues" with a brief a cappella introduction based on lyrics from "Rock Me." With hardly a pause, the band then leaps into an energetic version of "Ship of Fools" featuring some atmospheric organ work from Manzarek. Later, Morrison's legendary, guttural screams erupt during the transition from "Alabama Song" into"Back Door Man." Following that medley, they do anexcellent version of "When the Music's Over." Before the"We want the world" portion, the arena is silent and Jim asks "What do you want?" After the wild response,Morrison queries in a singing voice "What would you do with it?" to boisterous laughter and applause. And then quite unexpectedly, Morrison flatly states "I think I'll pass" to a knowing applause that indicates they understand what he is driving at. After that song, the band does a sparse, bluesy rendition of "Rock Me" that showcases Krieger's guitar prowess, and then quietly initiate their "People Get Ready" jam. As the tempo begins to accelerate into "Mystery Train," the audience breaks into spontaneous applause and the band is off to a respectable version of the medley, despite the fact that Morrison's vocals are becoming increasingly slurred. Next, after his opening shriek of "Wake Up!" Morrison interjects his poetic "Vast RadiantBeach" before bursting into "Wake Up" a second time, as their now customary prelude to "Light My Fire." Robby Krieger digresses into a waltz melody during his lead in "Light My Fire" that bears simularities to JohnColtrane's "My Favorite Things" and the Doors' instrumental"Summertime."

The second performance tonight is outstanding despite the stage power being cut off when the show goes overtime. Morrison hits the stage in a fury of energy that never seems to subside as he spins and reels about the stage throughout the show. During "Alabama Song," he slips while climbing a speaker stack, landing flat on his back in front of the speakers and proceeds with the song that way without missing a beat.
The late show opens with a vigorous "Break on Through" with Morrison bulleting out onto the stage right after the introductory notes and erupting into the song.The show starts at 12:18 a.m. and is running excessively late when the frustrated hall manager loses all patience and disconnects the band's stage power around two a.m. The electric instruments all go down, but the house PA system, including Jim Morrison's microphone, is still live. As the crowd screams for more, Jim is furious that their power had been cut and clearly growls" Cocksuckers!" into the live mike. He continues with "We should all get together and have some fun, because they're going to win if you let them!," Manzarek leaps from hiskeyboards, cups Jim's mouth, and emphatically reminds him that any controversial incidents could further damage the already excessively scrutinized tour. Morrison then angrily smashes his microphone stand into the floor and follows Ray off the stage.
The following day Morrison tells a reporter from Melody Maker:"When I freak out on stage it's usually for one reason,I can't stand them stopping the show. It happened again last night in Boston. Just as we got the audience going someone comes up and pulls the plugs. I got mad not just for us but for the audience who had been cheated as well. The result was that they cancelled the next booking in Salt Lake City."
The Doors On The Road

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Jun 27-30, 1969 - Mexico City

The Doors were originally scheduled to appear on
May 31 in Mexico City at the enormous Plaza
Monumental, the largest bullfighting ring in the world. The
performance is then tentatively rescheduled for June 27, but
promoter Mario Olmos is unable to secure the required
authorizations from city officials. As a result of the
disruptive student revolts the previous year, President
Gustavo Diaz and Mayor Corona Del Rosal are extremely
wary of authorizing such an event at the Plaza,
especially since it is so close to the anniversary of the
student unrest. This was the third time that they
retracted permission for the performance. Their
apprehensions were magnified following a stadium riot in March,
during which newspapers burned and chairs flew through
the air while the Mexican band Tijuana played "Light
My Fire." Apparently all hell had broken loose when
it was announced that the Union Gap would not
perform for such an unruly crowd.
In addition to these
Plaza Monumental negotiations, preparations are being
considered for a benefit designated for either the United
Nations or the Red Cross, to be held at the Camino Real
Hotel and/or an expensive dinner club. Such a benefit
would contribute to the citizens of Mexico as well as
further the political agendas of Mexican officials.
Attempts are even made to schedule the Doors into the
18,000-seat National Auditorium. A television special is also
discussed.
Finally, Mario Olmos approaches Javier Castro, who was the
owner of the 1,000-seat diner club the Forum, and
offers him the Doors for four consecutive nights at
approximately $5,000 each evening. When this offer arrives,
Castro immediately seizes the chance and schedules the
Doors over a four-day weekend with a cover charge
equivalent to a steep $16. Surprisingly, the Doors are never
consulted about this situation, and upon arriving they are
quite upset when they realize that the exorbitant cover
charge will prevent many fans from attending. Despite
the awkwardness of the situation, all four of the
Doors' shows are reportedly outstanding.
Mexico
City's major newspaper runs two half-page advertisements
for the broadcast association to air the first show
on June 27. However there is no confirmation that
this broadcast ever transpired. Similarly,
arrangements to film one of the concerts for later use by both
American and Mexican networks never materialize.
On
opening night, Jim Morrison greets the audience in their
native language to considerable applause. "Buenos
noches, senores y senoritas," he rings out and then
introduces the band members as "Ramon Manzarek, Juan
Densmore, and Roberto Krieger."
The Doors are besieged
with requests for "The End" throughout the evening.
When they finally oblige, an uncomfortable silence
pervades the room until Jim begins the Oedipal section and
the entire audience roars out the lyrics in unison
with him. It is not until later that the astonished
Doors are informed that in Mexico such lyrics are
especially revered for their daring and courage.
The Doors On The Road

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

December 2nd 1967 - Portland Memorial Coliseum

The Doors performance goes reasonably well.Toward the conclusion of a somewhat routine set, Morrison pauses to ask people what they want to hear. As calls for "Light My Fire" echo through the auditorium, Morrison facetiously states, "We're going to play a new song now. We don't know it too well, but here goes...." and then the band launches into an excellent version of "Light My Fire." During the song, Morrison leaps off the nearly ten-foot-high stage with his microphone and shouts "The blueberries [cops] have the guns,but we have the power. Yeah!" As the fans swarm toward the front of the stage, the police clearly indicate that Morrison had better return to the stage or they'll halt the concert. Morrison ignores them and begins eliciting responses from the audience with his outstretched microphone. Finally, when the instrumental portion of the song is concluding, Jim bounds back on stage and finishes the song. The police are not amused by Morrison's leisurely response and halt the show. Morrison later comments that he had hoped to encore with"The End" but was unable to.
"Teens interview the Doors: Here we go 'round the blueberry bush!" circa 1967

Doors' drummer JohnDensmore is exhausted from touring and asks the band to find a replacement drummer for their Northwest shows. John Kilor from the Daily Flash fills in for the Portland show.

The Action House Long Beach, NY - June 16th 1967
Before the first Action House show. Jim Morrison reportedly instructs the bartender to line up fifteen shots of Jack Daniel's and then drinks them all, one after another, just prior to taking the stage. As the show progresses, he consumes an additional fifteen shots and clearly exhibits the consequences. The club is exceptionally hot before the band begins, and the stage continues to heat up as the show wears on. Finally, as if in premonition of events to come, Jim begins to disrobe during one song, but is interrupted before he can achieve his ultimate goal.
The Action House Long Beach, NY - June 17th 1967
Probably the shortest Doors show ever. At the start of the show, Jim Morrison places the microphone in his mouth and begins to create "unearthly sounds" until the other band members help him off stage. Because it is primarily a dance club, the abbreviated show causes little disturbance
TheDoors On The Road

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

August 18th 1967 Alexandria Roller Rink Arena,Alexandria, VA
Jack Alix's Flower Power Show
This concert marks Jim Morrison's return
to the town where he had completed his teenage years
at George Washington High School. During that time,
he developed a taste for the blues and frequented
the rough-and-tumble blues clubs and roadhouses in
the surrounding environs. It was also here that his
literary interests began to expand. In addition to his
voracious appetite for the written word, Morrison begins
composing his own poems, among them "Horse
Latitudes."

October 6th 1967 California State, Los Angeles.
In the midst of their predominantly East Coast
tour in the early fall, the Doors, teeming with energy
and animation, return to LA for this lone show at Cal
State. The show goes exceptionally well and the audience
clearly loves it. Morrison frequently lets loose with his
legendary screams and makes suggestive inferences like
asking Manzarek if the organ has lit his fire? The
performance concludes with Morrison collapsed on his back,
screaming out the final verses, while those in the rear of
the gym strain to see past the excitement in the
front lines. The imminent surge toward the stage
prompts the promoters to encircle the band as they finish
their set and assemble a human barricade against the
wave of fans advancing toward the stage. Describing
Morrison's performance tonight, UCLA's Daily Bruin remarks:
"At times during the brilliant improvisational
sections to numbers, Morrison was like a
conductor/dictator gone berserk. He would thrash about attempting to
zap the potent energy so abundant within him to each
individual member of the group. He screamed at them, urging them on to more volume, more notes, more intricacies, more, More, More. He thundered back to his life-line microphone in time to reinstate pure human horror in the black air of the auditorium."
Jan Edward Vogels,
"Horror... the 20th century... the drugs... horror... the
Doors," UCLA Daily Bruin, October. 12th 1967
Note: This is future Doors' manager Danny Sugerman's first show.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Sunday, April 12th 1970 University of Denver
Arena
The Doors and the promoters for this show are
greeted by the notorious Denver vice squad known as
"McKevitt's Marauders." The "Marauders" proceed to scrutinize
every aspect of this production, hauling in cameras and
tape recorders to capture any indiscretion that might
offend the moral sensibilities of the community and,
incidentally, bring them some welcome political leverage.
At one point during the show, for example, Jim
Morrison is spotted consuming a beer, which he puts down
in huge gulps frequently followed by an uninhibited
belch, and the squad moves in to arrest him for
consuming alcoholic beverages in public. However, the
promoter is quick on his feet and challenges the squad to
consider the consequences if he has to go on stage and
explain why the show is being shut down. McKevitt
reexamines the situation and backs down, satisfied that at
least Morrison's backstage beer supply has been cut
off. When Morrison discovers this, he approaches the
audience with the request for a beer and is deluged with
about two dozen cans. Overall, it is a flamboyant
and theatrical two-hour concert that grips the
audience's attention from beginning to end, largely owing to
Morrison's genius for "Formulated spontaneity." As the
opening notes to "Back Door Man" resound, Morrison leaps
onto the stage bathed in red and purple lights,
reeling and spinning until he latches onto the microphone
to spit out a frightful, high-pitched laugh and the
introductory verse without missing a beat. Throughout the
show, he alternately paces the stage and rhythmically
straddles the microphone stand, periodically collapsing
onto the stage in wrenched contortions. Ultimately,
the only dissatisfied members of the audience are the
vice squad, who leave empty-handed.
The Doors On The Road

Denver Post
6,000 at Rock Performance:
It's All in the Acting to Doors' Morrison - He
began by leaping onto the stage, grunting out two lines
of "Back Door Man," spinning and falling flat on his
back (whether by accident or design, he later repeated
it purposely) as if struck by all the gathered
voltage in the mountain of amplifiers behind him, then
rising in the red and purple light with a high-pitched,
evil laugh, and singing. He never missed a
beat.
And out in the darkness, the audience of young girls
and young men loved every minute of it. It went on
like that for two hours, and the audience clapped,
shouted, and stomped feet and screamed for more.
Jim Morrison is something for the world to behold, and
contemplate. He writes terribly pretentious lyrics ("Before I slip into the Big Sleep- I want to hear the scream of the butterfly" is one of the milder examples), his voice has a range of perhaps three-quarters of an
octave, his phrasing isn't particularly good, and he
doesn't even move well. What he does is simply put it
all out front. He is crude in the extreme, drinking
beer on stage in huge gulps, belching into the mike,
screaming indistinguishable lyrics while going through
spastic contortions, straddling the mike, strangling it
in a death grip, falling to the floor in
agony-ecstasy throes of passion, then as quickly changing the
tempo to a slow, whispered, intensely felt
interpretation. Above all, he is dramatic. It is truly theater, with
music as its pulse. He acts out the role of rock-music
star, larger than life, the collective emotion of a
hypertense generation. The concert as catharsis. The
Doors do a song that goes "Break on through, break on
through to the other side." Most groups in rock have done just that, and all of us are trying. The Doors are
stationary, hung in the frame of their theatrics, but all of
us, at one time or another, must pass through The
Doors to get to the other side.
by Jim Pagliasotti Denver Post -April 13th 1970

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

September 23rd 1967 Stony Brook University New York
The Doors are the first concert of the State
University at Stony Brook's academic year and the
unanticipated crowd fills the Long Island gymnasium well beyond
capacity. The security service force is severely overtaxed
by the large turnout. The Doors have begun to
introduce long passages of silence at select points in
songs to step up the dramatic tension. They maintain
the suspense to the breaking point - until the room
seems ready to explode. And just at the point when the
tension becomes unbearable, the band breaks back into the song. This is what happens during their performance of
"The End" at tonight's show. The band suddenly goes
silent and remains motionless for a full three or four
minutes as the confused crowd becomes increasingly
restless and then - right at the flashpoint - the band
bursts back into the number. This was one of the most
effective and stunning of the band's theatrical
devices.
The university's Statesman publishes this review of
the show:
"During the Doors' 'People Are Strange,'
some California prototypes mimed the whole song in the
front aisle. Nobody was pulled off the stage this time,
but at least one bemused spectator was shoved around
by an uptight kid Executive for trying to listen to
the music. Perhaps it was in time to the music - the
Doors, with their Viet Cong rock, seemed to orchestrate
all the latent psychosis around them. During 'The
End,' that forest of electronic nerve-endings, they
stopped. The pause was meant to serve as brackets around
some tremendously potent imagistic assaults but people
got angry, walked out - the clever ones shouted
'Louder.' Eventually cooler heads prevailed, as they say,
and for those who could stop with them the group
conducted their broken Black Mass. The strength of the
Doors' performance can be synthesized from the potency
of their fragments. The story-book instrumental in
'Light My Fire,' and the narrative of 'The End,' for
example, entranced as always, and the only obstacle to
full catharsis was a nagging desire to see how Frankie
Valli fans were holding up."
John Eskow, "Doors Orchestrate Latent Psychoses of Audience," The Statesman, Sept. 27, 1967)
Michael Horowitz quotes Gloria Stavers's (editor of Sixteen magazine) commentary on the
show for Crawdaddy magazine: "I remember one concert in Stony Brook, he was really going to jive their
heads. The audience was just too enthusiastic, you know
what I mean? They were just too clapping. So in the
middle of one number - I think it was 'The End' - he
stopped. Cold. You could just feel the tension building
up. I thought there was gonna be an ex-ploh-sion! And
then, when it was totally silent, he made that sound -
I don't know the sound he makes, a sound from the
abyss, it's just a shriek! Later, he told me, 'You have
to have them. They can't have you. And if you don't
have them, you have to stop and get them.'"
Michael Horowitz, "The Morrison Mirage," Crawdaddy magazine, 1968
Doors On The Road

[wtd]

I think we as a people are not as creative as back in the sixties and seventies. Our minds are totally overloaded with TV, music, movies and computers. We have stimulation overload. What Jim did for entertainment was read books. Of course, he had a very sharp mind who could understand all the information the authors were trying to convey. Where, if I tried to read a lot of those books, I would find them uninteresting and boring. He soaked all that stuff up. All this information gave him the tools to be creative. He wrote some really creative stuff. The drugs probably helped also. I just think if people were not exposed to so much information. We would be more creative. I think as human beings we are naturally creative. But when your exposed to all kinds of entertainment around you all the time. Our brains just sort of shut down. We don't feel the need to be creative.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Good point......its like this obesity problem we in the western world are having....when I was a kid we had no playstations or computers so we went to the nearest field and played football day and night I weighed 8 and a 1/2 stone till I was 30 and I was a complete piss head and ate 3 to 4 meals a day and was addicted to cashew nuts

......the more advanced we get the more lazy we seem to become.....and the more lard ass and stupified.....

"The Lords appease us with images. They give us books, concerts, galleries, shows, cinemas.
Especially the cinemas.
Through art they confuse us and blind us to our enslavement.
Art adorns our prison walls,
keeps us silent and diverted and indifferent."


Now they give us X Box, McDonalds shit and blocked arteries from sitting on our asses all day.....

[wtd]

TheWallsScreamedPoetry said:

Good point.....

"The Lords appease us with images. They give us books, concerts, galleries, shows, cinemas.
Especially the cinemas.
Through art they confuse us and blind us to our enslavement.
Art adorns our prison walls,
keeps us silent and diverted and indifferent."


Good quote Alex, it does sort of hit the nail on the head!!!

[ensenada]

wow i forgot about that poem, thats the sort of shit i like writing about in my poems...what a cool poem

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Don’t remember much about The Doors at the Roundhouse, as I was completely off my head that night. I do remember seeing THREE Jim Morrisons on stage.
Chris Welch to RockTheNet
Chris Welch is probably one of Britain’s foremost music journalists having worked on three of the country’s best-selling rock magazines: Melody Maker, Metal Hammer and Kerrang!.