Once Music Starts, Even Critics Open Up To Doors

By Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News
August 29, 2003

In a way, it's amazing Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger are taking The Doors out on the road at all, no matter what name it's under. And for legal reasons, it's currently The Doors of the 21st Century.

With rare exceptions, they've resisted taking the road with music they wrote more than 30 years ago.

Now that they've finally decided to do it, they've been hit with lawsuits from everyone - the late Jim Morrison's family, original drummer John Densmore, replacement drummer Stewart Copeland.

All Manzarek knows, he says, is "we come out, Robbie hits Roadhouse Blues and everyone's on their feet and stays on their feet for the next two hours."

Everyone's getting their royalties and no one's getting ripped off, Manzarek says, especially the fans who know what they're getting.

"If you're coming to the Doors show and you think Jim is gonna be there . . . well, he could be alive, but guess what - he's dead," Manzarek says. "I think there's just so much energy coming off this that it just arouses passions. If you're on our side, it's like 'Whoa, what a great show!' If you're in love with Jim Morrison in a strange sort of way - not as an artist but as a leather-clad black mamba man - you're gonna say 'I hate this because that's not Jim.' This is Ray and Robbie and Ian Astbury singing, doing Doors songs."

The band makes its first Colorado appearance Saturday at the Coors Light Mountain Jam. Expect classic Doors songs such as Break On Through, L.A. Woman, Riders on the Storm, Light My Fire and more.

"Jim has become an icon. They've gone simply mad for Morrison," Manzarek says. "People who are enamored call it 'his music.' Wait a minute, that's the band's music! Jim is the singer. He never made any music at all. Jim would be the first to say 'Stop it.' It's not his music. It's my music, and it's Robbie's music. It's Jim's words."

And, Manzarek says, "Jim would love this. What do you want as a poet? You want people to read your words, to speak your words. Here's Ian, singing out the words of Jim Morrison to the public one more time. Jim as a poet would say 'Yes, do that. That's my words, that's my art.' "

Even detractors admit Astbury does justice to those words. The only performance that came close to Astbury's was when Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam performed with the surviving Doors at their 1993 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"Ian and Eddie both have a touch of the shaman in them, and so did Morrison. They get onstage and they get sorta transformed a little bit; you can see the head cock ever so slightly. . . . " Manzarek says.

That performance was the last for a long time, until the 2001 Doors tribute album, which turned into a VH1 Storytellers special with various guest vocalists - Astbury, Scott Wieland of Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Stapp of Creed, Pat Monahan from Train, Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction and more.

Afterward, "people kept saying to us 'Why don't you take it out? Take it out on the road!' It had been ages since Robbie and I played together and we had a really good time," Manzarek says.

A Harley Davidson 100th Anniversary show in Los Angeles last year gave them the excuse to get onstage again. All the possible singers were either on tour, in the studio or in rehab, but Astbury was thrilled, Manzarek says.

Thus began the acrimony and lawsuits. Densmore "blew his ears out on the VH1 show. We've sorta had Spinal Tap drummer problems. No spontaneous combustion, but John blew his ears out. We got Stewart Copeland, and he breaks his elbow. Plus he's got movie commitments he's gotta do," Manzarek says.

More original Doors projects are due; the band's Isle of Wight appearance from 1970 is on tap for DVD .

And the new Doors are partway through a new album featuring a variety of vocalists.