The Doors - Live At The Matrix

Breaking through with their earliest material live

In danger of letting the slew of 1970 live recordings get repetitive, Bright Midnight rewind to 1967, when The Doors’ first two albums, The Doors and Strange Days, bookended a year where the band remained a presence on San Francisco’s Sunset Strip.

That these recordings have surfaced is a testament to ingenuity. The smattering of confused applause following some songs (and Jim Morrison’s remarkably polite “Thank you”s – this is way before he got too Jimbo-lazy-drunk to remember the lyrics/give a shit) reveals just how weird these scenes must have seemed to a half-empty room attacked by a band unwilling to make concessions on barrages such as When The Music’s Over.

The Doors truly cut their teeth in public: Krieger’s languid guitar is in place of Manzarek’s later ubiquitous intro to Light My Fire, while trial lyrics fly through the likes of The End, showing just how they felt their way around each other on the way becoming infamous live performers. If you ever doubted their jazz credentials, check Summertime, while a cover of Allen Toussaint’s Get Out Of My Life, Woman even reveals an unknown soul side to one of the world’s least funky bands. Strange days, indeed.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Rhino/Bright Midnight | 8122798848 (2-CD)

Reviewed by Jason Draper
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