The Singer Bowl, Queens, New York City NY August 2nd 1968

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Singer Bowl, Flushing Meadows Queens, New York City NY August 2nd 1968


Newspaper ad

There is a segment in the pile of excrement that passes for an official Doors documentary that touches on violence at Doors concerts.
Cue lots of images of war and rioting and a moment when Jim seems to attack a camera crew.
Then the moron who directed this garbage ‘examines’ The Queens NY concert at The Singer Bowl.
And it seems the trouble was all caused by the lead singer of The Doors.

But of course, as with much of that useless documentary, the actual truth is both revealing and interesting.
The show was the first of a series of concerts throughout August for ‘The New York Rock Festival’ which featured Hendrix and special guest Big Brother & The Holding Company with Janis Joplin finishing at the end of August with The Rascals.
The nearest we ever got to Hendrix/Joplin/Morrison ever being in the same room.
This opener put The Who & The Doors together and The Who were not top of the bill much, I am sure, to their annoyance.


20-7-1968
New Musical Express UK






The show began with The Kangeroo who were booed and heckled until they hopped off stage.
They were followed by The Who and this is where the problems began.
Part way through The Who set the revolving stage broke down which meant a large proportion of the audience could not see the band.

Trouble was in the air even before The Who left the stage.
It would be unfair to lay this at The Who’s door either. But their actions before the show began exacerbated the brewing tension.
The would not play with any of The Doors equipment on stage as it would obstruct the view of the band.
Ironically half the audience could not see anyway but this meant there was over an hour setting up their gear before The Doors could take the stage.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

5-8-1968
The News Paterson NJ

When they do take the stage there is mayhem as those that can’t see try to find some vantage over the stage but are beaten back by police. Those that can see rush the stage and into a wall of policemen.

Morrison had an interest in the way crowds acted and how they could be manipulated and he does wind them up a bit but is not the cause of the trouble as that was happening ever since the stage broke down during The Who set.

The bullshit documentary makes a lot of an incident where Jim made an obscene gesture to some guys girlfriend and he throws a seat at Morrison. Which is a fair reaction to some bellend on stage being a dick.
But Johnny Depp then says ‘it was the first chair thrown’ which was impossible to confirm but it makes it sound as if up to the point of the chair being thrown the trouble did not start. Thus Jim responsible for the near riot.

There is a pretty good recording of The Doors set and it is clear the audience that can see are fighting with people who would not sit down so obscuring the view of those behind. Morrison can be heard talking with the audience and there is nothing to indicate he somehow exacerbated the tense atmosphere and caused the crowd to go mental.
Again neither The Doors nor The Who were at fault.
That blame lies perhaps with the audience, the stage and the police.
And bad luck.


newdoorstalk.proboards.com/thread/1278/when-re-strange-critique
Check out the thread on the documentary to see how they misrepresent Morrison at Singer Bowl.
Fantastic images but the script was bullshit and lies.



Backstage after the concert Pete Townshend is taken with the way Morrison seems oblivious to what had happened and wrote Sally Simpson for his upandcoming excellent Rock Opera Tommy.

Before the concert Jim wanders among fans chatting and signing autographs and another annoyance for me about When You’re Strange is how this is twisted into Jim being needy for attention. GRRRR.


3-8-1968
Bridgeport News CT


4-8-1968
Chicago Tribune IL






3-8-1968
News Herald OH


3-8-1968
San Francisco Examiner CA

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

3-8-1968
New Journal Wilmington DE





4-8-1968
Nevada State Journal NV


Cop carries injured fan backstage. The rest is Legend!

This scene and Morrison's indifference to what had happened prompted Pete Townshend to write Sally Simpson for the Rock Opera Tommy.
If you haven't heard the song yet pop over to YouTube and check it out and you will see why.


Over the years there were numerous accounts of the Doors provoking riots at their performances. Some of these reports were elaborate embellishments perpetrated by the venues for the purpose of interfering with performances by the rock groups they wished to ban.
Other bands, such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, found themselves engaged in the same controversy. One serious consideration raised by these conflicts was how to provide adequate security without inhibiting the performers or
interfering with the audience's enjoyment.
Jim Morrison, however, does not share these concerns. In fact, he is intrigued by the mob mentality he has observed at the Doors' and other bands' performances.
Despite the exaggerated portraits of violence surrounding some concerts, accounts of this performance are undeniably valid. From the outset, the show on this dreadfully hot and humid New York summer night is plagued with difficulties.
The Kangaroo open the show, and are poorly received by an impatient, unruly crowd. They are followed by the Who. It is a year before the Who's rock opera Tommy is released, and the band has yet to achieve
legendary status in the States.
Nevertheless, they are determined that the stage set-up specifically accommodate their presentation and are adamant that none of the Doors' equipment obstruct the stage. During the Who's performance, the rotating stage breaks down, leaving a section
of the audience unable to see the band adequately.
The Who put on a good, but not exceptional, show. They leave the stage visibly annoyed. After their set, there is an hour-long interim before the Doors take the stage, and the delay further aggravates the impatient
audience. As soon as the Doors appear, they are greeted with a thunderous assault of screaming fans, and segments of the crowd begin rushing the stage.
A column of policemen are stationed at the front of the platform to curtail this onrush of people, while Morrison fiercely jostles his way through them to face the crowd.
The chaos escalates continuously during the performance, with fights erupting throughout the Singer Bowl. Morrison sings with a very precise and articulate emphasis on the lyrics,
and actually appears to be substantially more sober than the crowd he is facing.
"A good portion of the audience still couldn't see and they were furious. Crowds stormed the front of the stage and were turned back by the police. Some were trying to scale the stage and others cheered them on. Morrison spun around and ground the songs out half-heartedly, ad libbing, improvising, doing an ominous dance. Hysteria was building.
Morrison shrieked, moaned, gyrated, and minced to the edge of the stage, hovering. Hands reached out and grabbed him and the cops had to pry them away. The camera crew ducked a piece of broken chair which came flying onto the stage. Morrison caught it and heaved it back into the crowd. The Doors were hardly visible from any angle because there were about twenty cops onstage."
Ellen Sander (Jac Holzman's girlfriend and rock critic) comments on the show's build-up in her book Trips:

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"City streets are not the only place where there is unrest and mobs get out of hand. On Friday night at the Singer Bowl, which is located on the grounds of the old New York World's Fair, a melee broke out involving several young patrons of a concert headlining The Doors, and The Who, both top rock combos.
The youngsters charged the stage area and threw chairs on stage, damaging some of The Doors' equipment. The Doors were just wrapping up their slot shortly past midnight. Three persons were hurt; one of them was arrested. The kids were restless due to the
concert's late start, a long intermission, and the addition of a third act, The Kangaroo.
Perhaps topping off these events were The Doors' lyrics, many of which refer to death, power, violence, and comment on society's bizarre aspects, and the wild theatrics of the group's lead singer and new contemporaneous sex symbol, Jim Morrison.
Adding to the climatic moment, was that, per plan, The Who had performed with the house lights on, but these were turned off for The Doors. And the tension was further spurred by breakdown of the revolving stage which, when operative, made it possible for
the act to be seen from all angles. The Doors have been gaining a reputation for exciting audiences beyond the norm. They have had several such incidents; the most recent of which was a larger-scaled riot the previous weekend in Cleveland.
Rushing the performers is, of course, not new to pop music in general, let alone r & r specifically. But it seems to be only of late that destructiveness has become a key threat
Singer Bowl August 2nd 1968.
Variety Magazine August 7 1968




The band enter the arena and walk through the crowd protected by a line of cops. We see Ray look the coolest cat wandering untroubled through the crowd and some good natured jostling for the others. Jim milks this moment for all he can.

By the time the Doors begin to perform "The End," the crowd is an incredible uproar. Morrison vainly attempts to "sssshhhh" the audience, but there is no response and he begins appealing to them. "Hey, this is serious, everyone! Get quiet, man! You're going to ruin the whole thing."
Following the opening stanzas of the song, Morrison drifts into an expansive passage of poetry, beginning with "Fall down now; strange Gods are coming."
With decidedly steady pacing, he advances through a series of poems until he unexpectedly screams, "Don't come here! Don't come in!" Proceeding from this flare-up into "Ensenada," Morrison is continually assailed with clamorous screams of "Morrison is King!" from the crowd.
He calmly begins to recite the Oedipal section with "Mother, I want to..." and the Singer Bowl bursts into pandemonium with the audience finishing the lyrics.
The band accelerates into the musical passage and Morrison hits the stage, writhing in agony like the death knell of a hideous serpent while the crowd goes wild.
The instrumental passage climaxes with a horrendous blood-curdling scream from Morrison, followed by Krieger's guitar set on some wildly unrestrained echo.
By now no one remains seated in the crowd and the police are forming a barricade in front of the stage. The audience is defiantly screaming "Sit down, cop!" as Krieger finishes the song with a long trail of feedback. Just before midnight, as the Doors conclude their performance, a horde of people begin demolishing the wooden seating section in front and hurling portions of the splintered benches at the stage.
The debacle turns into a complete riot when the crowd charges the police barricade, forcing the Doors to abandon the stage amid a torrent of plummeting debris.
As the police struggle to regain control of the crowd, Vince Treanor and the equipment crew desperately try to defend their gear.
Pete Townshend, lead guitar player for the Who, observes the entire disturbance from the side of the stage and is both fascinated and appalled by Morrison's apparent indifference to the situation.
According to Who biographer Dave Marsh, it is Morrison's aloof and mystifying demeanour in the face of intensifying chaos that prompts Townshend to write the Who's composition "Sally Simpson."
The Doors On The Road





A lot of myth regarding this gig is easily debunked listening to the bootleg.
From it we see/hear the band in no way incite the crowd anymore than it already had been since the stage broke down. The audience also do not finish the lyric to the Oedipal mother section of The End.
It's like a telephone game where the band/Jim's behaviour becomes worse with every passing of a message. The audience was beyond control even before The Doors took the stage and as above Morrison tries to calm things down.
The presence of all those cops hardly helped matters and we see the stage awash with little blue men in little blue hats throwing fans off the stage back into the maelstrom that the audience was fast becoming.
At the end of one of the segments filmed for FOF we see Vince Treanor rescuing Robby's Les Paul guitar as the audience go nuts and wreck the place.
Something they chose to do rather than Jim winding them up to fever pitch and setting them loose.
The breaking down of the stage an obvious catalyst to the riot that ensued. On the tape we also hear the fans that can view the stage battling with people who were standing up obscuring the view of those behind.
None of these things can be laid at the door of The Who or The Doors. It's like saying because Kangaroo were booed and heckled they generated the animosity that fuelled the audience for the rest of the concert.


Throwing fans of stage back into the ocean.


Roadie saves RK's Les Paul.


They escorted him in and they escorted him out.

But sadly History would put it all on the dirty Doors and their crazy singer.
The Variety report a perfect example of how the facts were twisted to suit their narrative. Their use of the word 'perhaps' a nice tool to put the blame where they wanted it.
From that piece it seems the stage broke down just before or during the start of The Doors set and the lights being dimmed/Doors lyrics set off the crowd. Basically The Doors could not win and if not for a fan recording the show we would have no way to figure out the truth from the lies. Of course it did not help the band themselves fed the bullshit during their own documentary.

'Give the singer some' but they never did.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

New York Rock Festival Singer Bowl, Flushing Meadows, Queens NY August 1968 Program

Front & Back


The Doors


Some of the rest




Doors content of the official program.