The band mostly ignores the songs during the 1970 concerts. On the Bright Midnight releases, there's only an aborted attempted at Wild Child, and the Soft Parade vamp. They seem more than content to move on and move past it.
The complete Rock is Dead session needs an Official release. I would prefer a stand alone release. Backstage and Dangerous got a stand alone release,Rock is Dead deserves the same treatment.
In regard to the conversation about "Love your neighbour, 'til his wife gets home...?" Then there's "Are you a lucky little girl in the city of light, or just another dark witness in the city of night?".
Backstage and Dangerous wasn't a rehearsal, it was a recording session with the intention to fill any gaps from the previous night. The Doors and Rothchild didn't know they would need more than one show to make a solid live album. As we all know, some Doors shows contain both moments of brilliance, and banality. Generally speaking, the Aquarius shows were bland and somewhat forced. The cuts which made Absolutely Live are, in my opinion, the best ones, and the intention of using only material recorded at the Aquarius theatre was never able to be realised. These recordings are important, as they represent the growth period between the grueling Soft Parade sessions, and the more blues rock sound they laid down in November of that year for Morrison Hotel. We are lucky to have clean recordings of the songs of this period. Why You Make Me Real didn't end up on Absolutely Live though, is baffling. It is my belief that the band largely abandoned the live album by November, but realised its potential and tried again in January of 1970, when they recorded all four shows at the Felt Forum. It would take them until May, potentially reviewing and assembling a tracklist, to realise they still needed more. The band re worked Build Me A Woman yet again, and consistently tried to get new material down, usually blues based material save for Someday Soon and Universal Mind, as it was the consensus to release a live album full of blues and rock n roll classics- which as we can hear, they at least attempted to do in concert not only at shows recorded for AL, but throughout the whole year, with less than satisfactory results. The only version of Rock Me which doesn't fall short of the mark was done in June in Vancouver. You could infer that the idea for a rock n roll based live album was borne from the Rock is Dead session. A recording session for Whiskey Mystics and Men, which derailed into a Robby Krieger and Harvey Brooks led bluesy rock n roll jam that like many actual Doors shows, offered up some absolute gems, and complete cringeworthy moments. Rock is Dead is undeniably more important than Backstage and Dangerous, as it is the closest thing we have to the birthing of the Morrison Hotel era, which lead to the proto-Hotel era we hear at the Aquarius Theatre. While Rock Is Dead probably belongs in a Soft Parade era context release, it is very much a departure point. It makes no sense that Rock Is Dead remains unreleased. What makes even less sense is the almost complete lack of recordings from the 17 live sets the band performed in 1969. In the very least, with the Doors being the bad boys of rock, you'd have thought that several audience tapes for each show would have surfaced by now.
If you could stop telling me how to spend my money, that’d be great, thanks. Obviously I’m not buying the same stuff just because it’s been rereleased. What an absurd exaggeration. I’m buying it for the new content. New versions of songs I adore and the inevitable bonus content. I mean seriously, did you just come on this thread to say that? No wonder I stopped visiting this forum.
For the most part I agree, although, I do think "Crystal Ship" and "Light My Fire" (second performance) would have been viable inclusions. In the case of "Light My Fire," the band plays quite well (and Ray's keyboard set up at the Aquarius is a better fit for the song), and to add more intensity to the final vocal lines of the performance, a clean edit from a 1970 performance would have resolved any vocal deficiency. I mention "Light My Fire" because with respect to the inclusion of a "long" Doors standard, I think "When The Music's Over" drags out. It probably fits better with the overall sequencing and theme of "Absolutely Live," but I think there were better options (either "Light My Fire" or the "Mystery Train" medley). I suspect Rothchild was avoiding live material from "Morrison Hotel" because it had been released just five months prior.
Some great tracks on it, and overall a good album, but I don't like it quite enough to go out and buy again. I'm perfectly happy with my VG+ first pressing, which sounds fantastic.
"Witness"? I don't recall a witness, only an angel...? Or I've not listened hard enough to the remixes!
I never understood why the Doors weren’t recording concerts more often. It seems most of the other 60’s bands did, yet they didn’t. If anybody has a good answer to this I’d love to hear it.
that "had" to be sugerman. and btw. i'm one of the "marchers' on that "unknown solider" track. i was about 12 or 13 and hanging around a lot of paul's sessions. he kinda took me under his wing, plus i could roll joints like a "pro". paul was my next neighbor, a mentor and "friend" and a long time associate of my pop's, who had first signed the doors to columbia in 65. trivial.. perhaps, but noteworthy ha.
ha! i just posted that. for sure, it was. danny put me in his books "no one here gets out alive" and also "tales of glamour and excess on wonderland". but by then he was really pissed at me. we were able to reconcile before he died, thankfully. he was a good friend but we were a collective mess, and trouble 'together".
Why they didn't record their performance at Madison Square Garden with Curtis Amy on sax, a full orchestra and Harvey Brooks on bass in front of 20,000 fans is beyond me.
