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THE
DOORS LIVE IN DETROIT
Every once in awhile, rather than performing the usual encore, if
the audience was really lucky, Jim Morrison would throw away the time
limits and perform until he couldn't stand up anymore. Jim had this
thing about limits - he liked them best broken. This performance at
Detroit's Cobo Arena was such a night. It easily contains the longest
Doors' set ever performed and extends about an hour over the standard
concert running time during this period.
It was performed when The Doors were working on 'L.A. Woman' in Los
Angeles. On the weekends -Friday, Saturday and Sunday- the band would
go out and play. 'Morrison Hotel,' the album they released before
'L.A. Woman,' was on the charts and the critics were hailing it as a
comeback. So the band was into playing songs from 'Morrison Hotel'
such as "Roadhouse Blues,""You Make Me Real" and "Ship Of Fools."
They were also returning to their musical roots. And in Detroit this
was quite evident. Starting with "Crossroads" through "Carol" and
into "Been Down So Long." And then onto "Been Away Baby," "Close To
You,""I'm A King Bee," "Rock Me Baby" and "Heartbreak Hotel" where,
on the latter tracks, they are joined by 'Morrison Hotel' "Roadhouse"
harp player and ex-Lovin Spoonful member John Sebastian on both harmonica
and guitar. The band, as you can hear, is clearly having a great time
indulging in their love of The Blues.
Also notable is their performance of "The End" which is a real rarity
among recorded live shows. I think three, maybe four, versions exist.
On this one, Morrison, who always loved to poetically improvise, diverges
from the song's published lyrics as heard on the first Doors' album:
"Come with me, across the sea" unexpectedly jumping into the climactic
"Come on, baby, take a chance with us" in a menacing voice. Fragments
of what would later become the album 'An American Prayer' appear throughout
this version. "A vast radiant beach..." "Everything is broken up
and dances..." And his feverish call to the audience to "Wake Up!"
which begins "Celebration Of The Lizard." Jim called to the audience
to "Wake Up!" hundreds of times, taking his lead from playwright/performance
artist/revolutionary Antonin Artaud who wrote "They are asleep, they
do not know they are asleep and I want to awaken them from their self-imposed
lethargy." Jim's admonition was a cry to take action towards a more
conscious state of being.
During the concert, following the "Wake Up!" plea, Morrison exploded
into a fury of motion, climaxing with his collapse on the stage as
dozens of audience arms reached out in the attempt to make contact
with the man already becoming myth. Union regulations demanded that
the show end at midnight but Morrison pushed the envelope again. "Don't
let them push us out!" he declares and the show goes an hour overtime.
And Cobo Arena permanently bars The Doors from entering their doors
again.
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