see concert photos:    http://robbykrieger.com/doors/gallery39.htm

THE DOORS PLAY ALBUQUIRKY, JULY 27, 2003

by Petronius Arbiter II, flaming eccentric extraordinaire

Well, it coulda been better, I suppose, but it was a pretty awesome concert as it was. They played some really rollicking versions of most of their old standards...

Biggest downers: (a) Late start. Supposed to start at 7:30, didn't start till 8:30. Longest delay of any Journal Pavilion concert I've seen so far.

(b) Probably as a consequence of the above, NO ENCORE! People were screaming for more. MOI was screaming for "MORE! MORE! MORE!" Pero no mas musica, Doors fans. Bummer, bummer...

(c) About twenty years ago in a "Rolling Stone" interview, Ray Manzarek said something like, "If we can find a singer who sounds like Jim Morrison, we can teach him Jim's moves."  Well, singer Ian Astbury sounds a lot like Jim, looks very
similar, and even sounded identical to him on "People Are Strange," but he doesn't appear to be even trying to cavort around the stage like Jim did; but then, who could?  Manzarek et al must've given up on that idea.  Ian did fine anyway, but
a bit more dancing around on his part would've been a nice touch.

(d) I'm starting to get superstitious above wanting to hear specific songs in 2003. At the four JP concerts I attended in 2000 (Bob Dylan/Phil Lesh & Friends, The Who, Neal Young,Santana) it seemed if there was one song I most wanted to hear, it always got played. This year, Crosby Stills and Nash did NOT play "For What It's Worth" or "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," and the Doors did NOT play "Riders on the Storm" nor second choice "Soft Parade," which is kind of a (deliberately) tacky song that I really love anyway. It's probably that no-encore thing again; supposedly "Riders on the Storm" was on the playlist for the encore-that-never-happened.

Biggest Uppers: (a) The light show/movie playing on the large screen behind the band, mixing trippy kaleidoscopic and mandala effects with live shots of Manzarek, Astbury, and guitarist Robbie Krieger, and also movie clips which mostly were shot in the Southwest and possibly right here in New Mexico, reminding one and all that the teen-age Morrison, a military brat, lived in Albuquerque, twice. There may even
have been some people in the audience who attended junior high school here with him.

(b) This band provoked more singing-along by the audience than any other performers I've ever seen except Pete Seeger.  Astbury would deliberately refrain from singing on the line "and I got myself a beer!" and turn the microphone to the audience. Other well-known lines provoked lots of singing and shouting... On "The Crystal Ship," after Astbury sang "I'd rather fly," I found myself shouting out loud, "I'd rather fly!"

(c) Now THAT song is also one of the Doors' all-time greatest, and well worth the price of admission by itself.  When they did it, Astbury and Krieger huddled up over on the left-hand side of the stage next to Manzarek at the keyboard, and did a very folksy intimate rendering, with Krieger switching to acoustic guitar. Absolutely riveting.

(d) The moment when I shouted out "Riders of the Storm!" in a futile effort to get them to do that song (I've never yelled out a request before), and a woman off to my left and a few rows behind me shouted "Riders of the Storm!" right after me.
Obviously, I wasn't the only one who really wanted to hear that song. Nor, for that matter, was I the only one who didn't know the correct title is "Riders ON the Storm," as I've since been informed.

(e) Watching Manzarek play keyboard has an almost hypnotic quality, just fascinating 'cuz he's so good at it by now. He started one song by switching the keyboard to harpsichord sound and delivered this long very baroque intro in electric harpsichord.  He switched to an electric piano sound for another intro... Some other unexpected gems: The intro music to the whole concert was a recorded snippet of some very dire-sounding melody from the opera "Carmina Burana." Set the tone just great. Also, at one point Manzarek pointed out that Krieger is "the only guitarist in rock 'n' roll who can play flamenco!" and Krieger proceeded to do exactly that. It was
damn good flamenco, too, and then he segued into "Spanish Caravan."

It's at this point, as the concert was wrapping up, that the story gets personally embarrassing. There's some kind of awful grass pollen there in the South Valley that I must be very allergic to, and it wasn't mixing too well in my stomach with my bratwurst and Sprite, and I ended up visiting the medical tent for the first time in my long concert-going career.

Unfortunately, this meant that I more or less missed most of "L.A. Woman," all of the next song, and the beginning of "Light My Fire," which closed the show... Albuquerqueans take note: If you have pollen allergy or other minor medical problems, be sure and slip your usual meds into your jacket pocket when you visit the Journal Pavilion, 'cuz you can't go back to your car and return to the concert... Sheesh-a-roonie, folks, I'm gettin' old, ya know?

... But at least I'm still young enough at heart that, not having heard "Riders on the Storm," I stood by my car in the parking lot and sang it myself to the other folks still returning to their cars. I was gonna hear that song one way or another, ya know?

Sweet dreams, Doors fans! I can definitely tell you that the crowd at this concert was about as pumped by this concert as I was. I always knew the Doors were a band, not just one guy.  They sure proved it last night.

 
submitted 7/29/03

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