Last Call for the Doors
- by Tom Sinclair
JIM MORRISON'S LEGENDARY BAND STAGED THEIR FINAL SHOW 26 YEARS AGO
Ray Manzarek remembers The Doors’ last concert well. It was the night singer Jim Morrison’s spirit left his body—though it would return to linger for another few months. The date was December 12, 1970; The Doors were playing a large, dank waterfront venue in New Orleans. Hunched over his keyboard, Manzarek says, he felt Morrison ”leave the stage”—but Morrison’s body was standing stock-still in front of the microphone.
When the singer’s ”spirit” returned, it was with a vengeance: He smashed a hole through the stage with a mike stand, ending the concert early and providing a suitably dramatic finish to what turned out to be the Doors’ final performance with Morrison.
Their appeal was perhaps best explained by critic Lester Bangs: ”The Stones were dirty, but The Doors were dread.” Formed in L.A. in 1965, the Doors—Morrison, Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger, and drummer John Densmore—crammed sex and blues and jazz and death into a heady rock & roll stew that was the perfect soundtrack for a generation bent on breaking down the doors of perception.
