The Doors of The 21st Century

Minneapolis Orpheum Theater

April 23, 2003      8:15 pm

First of all, my expectations were just to enjoy having a chance to hear Doors' music one last time in a live setting. The lights went out just after 8:15pm and to our surprise a juggler appeared wearing clown face makeup and juggling multicolor balls. He waved goodbye to the audience and then a loud booming voice came over the sound system. A man appeared looking like a vaudevillian character with a huge mustache.  He yelled something about "Do you want rockn' roll?  Please welcome from Los Angeles, California, The Doors of The 21st Century!"

The Doors opened very quickly with "Break on Through To The Other Side". Ian Astbury seemed a bit tentative.  He was wearing aviator sunglasses and looking

very much like Jim Morrison circa 1968.  Ian's hair is cut short to reveal quite a babyface, very much like Jim Morrison.  He was wearing white or light tan cowboy boots and a light tan corduroy jacket.

The sound immediately threw most of us off.  The mix was very mushy and it was hard to distinguish instruments at all from each other.  As the band went into "Love Me Two Times", the sound settled down a little bit and we could hear Robby Krieger’s familiar guitar riffs, but still the mix was mushy and gave the song no  distinction or punch.

There was a short break for about 20 seconds after "Love Me Two Times" ended.  Robby began the next song with a strange howl coming from his guitar and then began some of his legendary finger picking.  For the first time the audience was able to get a punch from his playing.  No one else in the band was playing yet.  The

band broke into "Take It As It Comes".  Finally the sound mix seemed to sound good.  Ray Manzarek's farfisa organ blared beautifully and Ian's voice sounded extremely strong.  Finally I felt like singing along!  This has always been one of my favorite Doors songs.   Ray’s organ playing at the end of the song, along with Ian's intense singing, made the song horrifyingly beautiful just as it is on the Doors debut album.

The Doors just lifted everyone off the ground with "When the Music's Over!"   Krieger's strange tunings on the guitar in mid-song were unbelievable.  So were his twisting and howling psychedelic guitar fills!  Manzarek's haunting farfisa just made your hair stand on end!  So far the only letdown was Ty Dennis on drums.  He is a professional to be sure, but he was missing cues all over the place.  Mr. Dennis also had a hard time picking up the slack to bring the songs back up to speed.  This is one of the things that makes a drummer a good rockn' roll drummer.  Ty Dennis is only very serviceable, especially with a band like the Doors.

Original Doors drummer John Densmore is sitting this tour out.   John’s  presence on drums was terribly missed.  Densmore is one of the greatest drummers in the history of rockn' roll.  It's too bad that Ray and John have to be so hissy and can't just get on like mature human beings.  Can't do anything about that, though.

Starting with "Moonlight Drive" and until the show ended, the sound mix was slammed into distortion.  Robby Krieger’s beautifully twisting bottleneck sound was totally lost on "Moonlight Drive".  This was very disheartening.  The middle section of the show contained classic Doors rockers including "Wild Child”, “Not to Touch The Earth” and “Five To One".   Although very powerful, the sound was very stinging to the ears.

With the world at war right now in Iraq, these songs including "The Unknown Soldier" seemed very poignant. A lot of the subtleties of Ian's singing during the slow parts of rockers were totally lost in the distortion.  The only time you could hear Mr. Astbury's wonderful baritone was when he was singing as hard as he could to get his point during certain verses.

Robby Krieger then came center stage with a solid body flamenco guitar.  He obviously was going to perform the introduction to "Spanish Caravan". This is usually a highlight of a Doors show.  Tonight, he sounded like a guitar tech during sound check messing around with reverb.  The sound was so loud and distorted that this beautiful introduction was lost in reverb and distortion.  Robby Krieger is master musician and the beauty of his playing was totally lost on the audience. My impression was that most of the audience wondered whether he was playing a song or messing about with tuning.

The sound mix returned to normal for a bit with "Unknown Soldier".  The Doors performed it just like they used to do in the 1960's.  Robby used his guitar to shoot Ian Astbury in the head just as Ty Dennis' drum roll came to an end.  This marked the only time the audience actually quieted down to hear the powerful subtleties of the Doors sound.  As Ian jumped and danced, singing "War Is Over!", this is one of the only times that the Doors genuinely connected with audience on a deeper level than "Hey, we’re at a Doors concert".

A lot of these problems have to be left the Doors soundman and mixer.  The Minneapolis Orpheum Theater is a beautiful place to see a concert.  The Orpheum holds only 2200.  The sound has always been beautiful in this classic plush auditorium.

As the show continued, "Riders On The Storm" was the most distorted song of the night.  Most the audience were completely befuddled as we all kept looking at each other as if saying to one another "What the hell is with the sound?"   Again for a brief moment during the three minutes of "Touch Me", the sound mix returned to sounding at least pleasant.  Everyone sang along in unison!  It was quite jarring and really nice to hear "Touch Me" without horns and the big production.  Ray Manzarek’s farfisa organ filled the sax parts wonderfully. Without the usual production sound, the song had much more of a rockn' roll feel to it.

The Doors came back out for the second encore and performed "Light My Fire".  The audience really seemed to enjoy themselves as they sang along with Ian.  The extended farfisa organ solo and Robby Krieger's extended guitar solo was fun to watch and hear as Ray and Robby played off each other like brothers.

As the audience gathered outside the auditorium, everyone was talking about how the horrible sound mix ruined the show.  People were holding their hands over their ears.  I did notice a lot of people saying how much they enjoyed Ian Astbury.  He had big shoes to fill, considering how the Morrison legend has grown into something so absurd that expectations are so high and unrealistic.

This incarnation of the Doors is definitely worth checking out again.   Long live the Doors!

ROBERT LINDER

(thanks, Robert)

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