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Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1968) - The Doors

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The Doors Live at the Hollywood Bowl was made under the direction of Ray Manzarek. There were four cameras used and the sound is amazing. It's hard to believe this was recorded in 1968.

One thing that has always bummed me out whenever VH1-Classics shows the video of "Light My Fire" from this movie, the best part is cut out. That's where Ray and Robby do their awesome solos. It is better not to show the song at all than to show that truncated version.

I was pulled in immediately by the opening song, probably my favorite live Doors song, "When the Music's Over." I used to play that live version from Alive She Cried a lot on Deaconlight.

As charismatic as Jim Morrison is, it is really the combination of all four that make The Doors so incredible. Perhaps Bono is the only singer who has more charisma than Morrison. U2 is another four-piece that is greater than the sum of its parts. It's probably from watching so much Star Wars lately but it's as if Bono is the Obi-Wan and Morrison is Darth Vader. It was the dark side of the force that led to his destruction. Such a waste of talent.

The first time I went to Paris in 1986, I was bummed I didn't get a chance to visit Morrison's grave. The last day I was there I had to catch a train to Amsterdam. I raced to the cemetery but when I got there, I realized I had gone to Cimetière de Montmartre instead of Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. By then I had no time before my train left.

I made up for my miss during my second trip to Paris in February 1992. Hubby and I went to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise to take pictures and find Morrison's grave. It is a stunning cemetery.

We could tell we were getting close to Morrison's grave because we could hear music and talking in a particular spot. Hubby had the video camera and I had my Nikon FM2 to shoot black and whites. The ones posted here aren't that great because I just scanned in some old prints I have lying around.

There were a bunch of kids - probably in their twenties - English, French, and Italian, I think - hanging out by the grave. One of them posed for me in a rather crude shot I won't post here. They were burning candles and drinking liquor. You can see some their stuff in my shot of Morrison's headstone. They didn't like us coming around with our cameras at all. At one point we thought they were going to try to take the video camera away, so we didn't hang around too long. Someday perhaps I will post that video here.

-- May 29, 2005 (DDT)

Buy The Doors Collection -
Collector's Edition DVD »
at FYE

Includes the Doors concert film
Live at the Hollywood Bowl.