LaRM day 113 (Doors)

Right, so, obviously, as a result of the bonanza that was the CDs that came into work back in the day, I took anything remotely interesting, as stated previously. Amongst those things were three CD issues of live shows that the Doors performed in 1967 and 1970 respectively. Now, this is all well and good, except that a) their shows went on forever and b) these box sets include whole residencies. So we have a compiled two show, 2 hour set from 1967, a two complete show, three hours combo from April 1970 and (gulp) a complete four show, 6 hour collection from January 1970. So there we have it, 11 hours of the Doors in action. As a result today's and tomorrow's entries will be pretty short because I suspect although these things go on forever and a day, I won't actually have much to say about them. Let's get cracking then with the 1967 show Live at the Matrix, San Francisco (officially released 2008). Bearing in mind the Doors were still relatively obscure, having only released the debut album at this point and not having released 'Light My Fire' yet, it's surprising just how confident and accomplished they already were. Morrison gives it large pretty much throughout, yelping and howling, and you do get the sense that it must have been electrifying to see him in action at the time. Nonetheless, sustaining the full two hours is a tough job and by the end, and an insipid cover of Van Morrison's 'Gloria', you've really started to wilt. The band are undeniably superb, Ray Manzarek's keyboard finely controlled and Robby Krieger's guitar work is exemplary (there's some astonising stuff on 'The End' for instance). It's bold stuff and no surprise that it's a "legendary" gig, but as ever, it's the Doors, so I have some difficulty with the band and the songs generally.

And obviously the only other thing that we can do today is the 6 hour set, Live in New York, January 1970 (officially released 2009). The four consecutive shows (over two days) at the Felt Forum are a mixed bag, each one mixing the lively, the enlivening and the jaded. You can feel Morrison's enthusiasm come and go in waves throughout. The first show starts off pretty well, but by the end it's dropped off and although the band try valiantly, the mood has dropped off considerably. The slickness of their performance has improved dramatically from an already impressive level and it's all supremely tight. The turning point in the first show is a pointless and overlong version of 'Little Red Rooster' and despite a spirited outing for 'Light My Fire', it's all over bar the shouting (which Morrison does a lot of in all of these shows incidentally). The second show is longer (nearly making it to two hours) and has a lot of unusual song choices ('Ship of Fools', 'Build Me a Woman') but again, there's just too much of it. The whole band are still firing on all cylinders (difficult considering this is the second show on the same day), but it's hard to stay with them throughout. I know live albums are difficult at the best of times, especially bootlegs, but the problem with the Doors is that it can all start to sound turgid when you listen to too much at once. And that's exactly what I've done. Anyway, the third show is pretty good. The band sound refreshed and lively for the most part, the bluesy foundation of all their work brought out beautifully by Krieger, Densmore and Manzarek. There are more touches of brilliance that remind why the Doors were such a massive deal at the time in the third show than any of the others. The fourth and final show starts with Morrison basically having a go at the audience for not settling down in time, and that kind of sets the tone for the first half of the show. The reading of 'Alabama Song' (a pretty terrible piece at the best of times) is particularly audience baiting, Morrison mucking about as if he's bored out of his mind. To be fair the band must have been pretty frazzled by this point, but nevertheless the switching between sleepwalking through the songs and being deliberately obtuse is fairly egregious and the audience would have had a right to be pretty hacked off. The mood changes when, about a third of the way through, Morrison launches into the absolute zenith/nadir (depending on your point of view) of his art, 'Celebration of the Lizard'. Now clearly Morrison himself considered this epic piece of staggeringly self-indulgent juvenilia to be a masterpiece of creative thinking and he gives his all to the whole 17-minute performance of it. It's unbelievably bad stuff in itself, a genuine embarassment, (I should mention at this point for Dan that it's following this car-crash that Morrison declares a rather desperate "Alright, let's boogie!") but it does reinvigorate the whole band who bring a lot more to the show thereafter. The rest of the show is pretty impressive and the encores are well-deserved. But, the problem remains, you have to think the Doors had enough inherently interesting quality to warrant dedicating so much time to listening to these shows, and I for one think they fell well short.

Yet more tomorrow with the Live in Boston, April 1970 sets. Yaaawwwwwn.