THE DOORS
Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles, CA
1968-07-05
Format: mp3 320kbps
Tracklist:01 - House Announcer 3:08
02 - When The Music's Over 12:51
03 - Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) 1:32
04 - Back Door Man 2:33
05 - Five To One 1:27
06 - Back Door Man (Reprise) (cut) 0:54
07 - Hello, I Love You 2:13
08 - Moonlight Drive 3:19
09 - Horse Latitudes 1:07
10 - A Little Game 1:19
11 - The Hill Dwellers (cut) 1:12
12 - Spanish Caravan 3:43
13 - Wake Up! (cut) 0:12
14 - Light My Fire 9:34
15 - The Unknown Soldier 4:32
16 - The End (cut) 2:24
17 - Hollywood Bowl Radio Spot 0:55
From Greg Shaw's book The Doors On The Road:This legendary performance is one of the most highly anticipated shows of the year. The Doors are preceded by Steppenwolf, who deliver a surprisingly restrained set, and then the Chambers Brothers, who bring the house down with their "Time Has Come Today."Opening with an extended intro to "When the Music's Over," the Doors deliver a straight-ahead and tightly executed show. Uncharacteristically, Jim Morrison seems rather detached and remains stationary throughout most of the show. He is obviously determined to shift the emphasis to his vocal performance, rather than his legendary wild antics. In addition to their usual repertoire, the Doors incorporate some selections from "Celebration of the Lizard" as a prelude to "Spanish Caravan." Perhaps the highlight of the evening is an impressive rendition of "The End," which features a very dark (and often quite humorous) fusion of unreleased poetry. During the climatic instrumental, Morrison breaks into a mesmerizing shamanic dance, like a man possessed, that is more characteristic of the band's shows at the time.The Feast of Friends film crew shoots the entire set in color with additional cameras (one of the cameramen is Harrison Ford), and the concert is officially released on video in 1987. The sound is recorded on eight-track using the Wally Heider remote truck.The next time the Doors appear at the Hollywood Bowl, it will be without Jim Morrison and will mark their final performance as a group.At this performance, Jim Morrison's vocal channel is plagued with an intermittent microphone cable. Although these audio breaks are not apparent to the audience, the lack of continuity proves fairly obvious on the master recordings. In preparation for the official release of the video, the audio tracks are taken to Sonic Solutions in San Francisco. Sonic Solutions was established by Dr. James Moorer in 1986 as a business specifically developed for the restoration of rare and valuable recordings. By using a series of corrective state-of-the-art technologies, sometimes referred to as "No Noise," Sonic Solutions developed the capacity to enhance even lackluster recordings to a brilliant clarity only hinted at on the master tapes. For this recording, Dr. Moorer and associates synthesize the missing portions of the vocal track, achieving an audibly flawless simulation of the absent segments of the material.
From Stephen Davis' book Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend:The Hollywood Bowl was built in Cahuenga Pass in 1922 as a spectacular amphitheater seating eighteen thousand people, dramatically situated in the hills above the city. It was an ideal evening venue for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the opera companies it was designed for, but was far more problematic when it came to amplified rock shows. The Doors’ crew arrived two days early to set up the gear, fifty-four amps lined up across thirty yards of the stage, loud enough to be heard a mile away. New Doors crew member Harrison Ford was an aspiring actor; his chores included some carpentry and (according to unsubstantiated Hollywood lore) finding herbs for the band. He also handled one of the cameras during the concert’s four-camera shoot.
The show was completely sold out and hotly anticipated in Los Angeles. KHJ radio jocks noted that the crowd was even nuttier than the one the Monkees had drawn a few months earlier. Steppenwolf opened the hot July evening with their new hits “Born to Be Wild” and “Magic Carpet Ride.” The Chambers Brothers roused the teenagers with their long-form psychedelic jam “Time Has Come Today.” Mick Jagger, who had gone to dinner with the Doors before the show, sat backstage and watched carefully how things went.The Doors went onstage around nine o’clock amid a seething mob scene and turned in a subdued performance that disappointed everyone there that night. The firebrand god of rock was absent. The erotic politician, the electric shaman, the Lizard King—none of these personae showed up. Instead Jim shocked everyone and sang, crooning his songs in leather trousers and his Moroccan vest, from a fixed spot on the stage, moving very little. He wore a silver cross around his neck, which no one had ever seen him do, and chain-smoked cigarettes, which was also unlike him. Only when he had to scream did he bend at the mike and let go, and occasionally Jim would allow himself to fall into one of his cool, crouching Hopi dances.The other musicians looked at each other in puzzlement as Jim worked through the hits, and then into songs from the just-released Waiting for the Sun: “Five to One,” “Hello, I Love You, “Spanish Caravan,” and “The Unknown Soldier.” After every song, hordes of teens yelled at him to do “Light My Fire.” He slipped two sections of “Celebration” into “Horse Latitudes,” and three of his new poems (“Accident,” “Grasshopper,” and “Ensenada”) into “The End.” Throughout Jim maintained a vacant stare, smiling a little, not bothering to make contact with the audience.There were several factors involved in this tepid show. Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, and Jimmy Miller were sitting in the front row, so Jim was under Jagger’s merciless regard. Pamela and her boyfriend were cuddled up a few rows behind them. The hot movie lights made the Doors’ usually dark stage white hot. Jim was obviously uncomfortable with the gigantism of the Bowl, and with the immaturity of the restless kids who laughed at the band, threw things, booed the new songs, and ran around during the show. If, as Pam told Jones, Jim was playing high on LSD, he managed quite well, turning in a musically faultless performance that still bored everyone silly. The kids were expecting raw rock theater bordering on human sacrifice, and got a live TV show instead. John Densmore was furious when Robby told him that Jim had dropped a few tabs of LSD before going on.Mick and Marianne skipped the party afterward. Jimmy Miller later said that on the drive back to their hotel, Mick Jagger complained the Doors were boring. The Hollywood Bowl concert had been a financial success but a major downer. The Doors suffered what writer Ellen Sander (now Jac Holzman’s girlfriend) called “a dramatic loss of local prestige” as the suburban high school kids badmouthed the band. Mick Jagger had learned how not to put on a big rock concert.
My notes:This is the audience recording of the famous concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The show was professionally taped and filmed, but technical problems prevented the release of the full concert until recently. In 1987 a film called "Live At The Hollywood Bowl" was released, but it was missing Texas Radio and the Big Beat, Hello I Love You and the first half of Spanish Caravan, and contained overdubs on other songs. The companion LP just featured Light My Fire, The Unknown Soldier, and other snippets. Only in 2012 it was possible to release a full version of the concert, with the missing audio carefully restored by using bits of other performances. So, if you are interested in watching the full high resolution movie of this concert, buy the official "Live at the Bowl '68" DVD or Blu-Ray edition. The quality of this audience recording is obviously worse, but it's the only statement available of the original performance of Jim Morrison, without the post-production overdubs that you can hear on the official "Live at the Bowl '68" CD. Unfortunately, Back Door Man is cut at the end, Texas Radio and the Big Beat is completely missing, and Wake Up! and The End are heavily cut too. I have included the KHJ radio advertisement for the show as a bonus track.This said, this exhibition is not as legendary as they want you to believe. Surely, it's a piece of rock history, but Jim looks either too shy or stoned throughout most of the show, and rarely goes over the top. Notably, I find the performance of The End rather dull and anti-climactic, with the embarrassing joke about the grasshopper that ruins the atmosphere. Nevertheless, this show is a must have for any fan, but if you want to hear the wild sound of the Doors, you might be looking for other concerts of that period, like Philadelphia, The Singer Bowl or The Roundhouse in London (which was partially filmed too).Although both Shaw and Davis assert that Harrison Ford was one of the cameramen, this is not completely true. Ford was part of the camera crew, but in this particular show he was just an assistant and did not operate any of the cameras. He probably shot some footage in other occasions.
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1987 video Live at the Hollywood Bowl
