Ian Astbury filled the role of Jim Morrison as the Doors of the 21st Century rocked Rexall Place last night. (Preston Brownschlaigle, Edmonton SUN)

What is more strange - seeing the Doors with a new singer who looks and sounds like the old one, or seeing the band in the company of people whose parents weren't born when Light My Fire came out?

Doubly strange. Hey, last night's event at Rexall Place was called the "Strange Days Festival." Along with the expected turnout of boomers and old hippies was a surprising number of youngsters come to see how rock 'n' roll used to be done before it got so damned serious. Contrary to belief, rock wasn't better in the '60s - just the stuff we remember. And we were there, dig? At least I think we were.

Doors of the 21st Century - with the Cult's Ian Astbury on lead vocals - wasted no time opening the floodgates of nostalgia. They launched the show with Roadhouse Blues. It sure sounded like the Doors. The sound was bad, just as it was in the '60s.

Ray Manzarek - who got a big hand after being introduced as the guy who put the Doors together - played some fancy new synth outfitted with all the old sounds. They hired a bass player so "I can use my left hand for other obscene acts," Ray joked, though he probably wouldn't have overplayed so much. He even used his elbows.

Robby Krieger's guitar lost nothing with time. It was just louder, jazzier, busier.

The drummer they hired was terrific, too good, perhaps. And Astbury was just swell, maybe a little harsh in mid-range, but playing up the tortured rock star thing perfectly. Squint your eyes a bit and he's the Lizard King.

More than 4,100 fans bellowed the memorable line of that first song, "Well, woke up this morning and got myself a beer." Break On Through came next and now they're talking about getting high. Then Love Me Two Times. Ah, those were the days. Strange days.

Later came native dancers - not a hallucination as they reappeared in Riders on the Storm. Must be that "shamanistic" thing Ray had been talking about. Astbury, too, knows where his mojo comes from in this band. At one point, during an extended jam on LA Woman, he shouted, "This is for Jim!"

There was general agreement. Wherever Jim is now - probably running a record store in Paris and grateful he's not a rock star anymore - he would be proud. He might even say, "Man, it took you 34 years to find a new singer?!"

Pat Travers was the first step in our evening of sonic regression. I remember him opening for Ted Nugent long before we realized the Nuge spits when he talks about how much he loves hunting. Pat blew the Nuge away, as I recall.

Then again, we all "peaked" early and didn't react well to the Nuge swinging on a rope onto the stage wearing nothing but a loin cloth, so you never know.

Last night, so many years later, despite a drummer who "played outside the pocket," Travers ripped through trademark politically incorrect anthems like Snorting Whiskey and Drinking Cocaine and the closer, Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights.

They just don't build songs like this anymore - one glorifies substance abuse, the other violence against women. Would he have hits with such material had it come out today? I think not. How strange.

Next, and even stranger, Vanilla Fudge pulled the crowd back even further into the time tunnel of psychedelia as the sixties' greatest cover band.

With all original members - a rare claim for a band of this vintage - the Fudge is perhaps best known for a song not its own, the Supremes' You Keep Me Hanging On. Why mess with success?

With an organic, perhaps even macrobiotic vibe, the quartet also personalized the Beatles, Curtis Mayfield and, in a new wrinkle, U2.

Featuring a real Hammond organ and loose arrangements that actually showed personality you don't get with note perfect shows, the band played like they had nothing to lose. Which they don't.

They don't have to worry about selling records or getting radio airplay, and neither, for that matter, do the Doors. They made their mark on musical history. Now all that's left is fun. There's nothing strange about that.

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SOUND CHECK

MAIN EVENT: The Doors of the 21st Century

IN THE SEATS: 4,100 IN REXALL

THE LOWDOWN: An evening of total musical regression that proved rock wasn't better in the '60s - just the stuff we remember.

RATING: 3 1/2 out of 5