THE DOORS
The Singer Bowl
Flushing Meadows, Queens, NY 1968-08-02
Format: mp3 320kbps
Tracklist:01 - Back Door Man 3:32
02 - Five To One 4:40
03 - Break On Through (To The Other Side) 3:40
04 - When The Music's Over 12:33
05 - Wild Child 2:46
06 - Wake Up! 1:36
07 - Light My Fire 8:45
08 - The End (alt. source) 17:04
From Greg Shaw's book The Doors On The Road: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 concems. 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.
Ellen Sander comments on the show's build-up in Trips: "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, Trips, New York: Charles Scribner‘s Sons, 1973)
By the time the Doors begin to perform "The End," the crowd is in 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 "Fal1 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 of the song, but when he pauses at one significant part, the audience impatiently roars the delayed lyrics "he walked on down the hallway, baby!" The crowd momentarily becomes quiet again, until Jim reaches the conclusion of 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 bloodcurdling 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 demeanor in the face of intensifying chaos that prompts Townshend to write the Who's composition "Sally Simpson."
My notes:A very good audience recording of a terrific concert, although the tape distorts during Light My Fire. You can hear the crowd cursing and yelling during the whole performance. Indeed, the show turns into a riot just as the tape ends. This is also the first live performance of Wild Child ("Never performed before on public stage" as Jim introduces it).I converted the original .flac files into high quality 320kbps .mp3 files.
Download:http://nvzxvw.link-protector.com - mediafire
