Rhino and Bright Midnight Archives unleash four inspired performances from The Doors’ final tour with LIVE IN NEW YORK. The latest addition to the band’s acclaimed series of archival concert releases, this six-disc collection contains all four of The Doors’ performances – in their entirety – recorded in 1970 at the Felt Forum in New York City. The collection will be available November 10 at all retail outlets, including www.thedoors.com and www.rhino.com, for suggested list price of $89.98 for the physical boxed set. A digital version featuring select highlights from all four Felt Forum shows will also be available at all digital retail outlets for $9.99. An exclusive stream of “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” from the second show on January 17, 1970 will premiere at spinner.com beginning this Thursday, August 27.
Recorded January 17 and 18, 1970 – just a few weeks before the release of Morrison Hotel – these concerts find Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek locked in tight as they deliver smoking takes on soon-to-be-classics from their forthcoming album, including “Roadhouse Blues,” “Peace Frog,” “Ship Of Fools,” and “Maggie M’Gill.” The shows also feature a number of driving blues covers, such as Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster,” and John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake.” “Those were the bluesy songs we always used to do,” Krieger says. “We probably hadn’t done them in years, but we resurrected them for these shows.”
The year prior to these shows, The Doors became one of the first rock bands to play New York City’s Madison Square Garden. When they returned in 1970, Densmore says they chose to play the Felt Forum, a smaller venue at the Garden. “It was more intimate, and you could feel the audience more,” he says. “There was more interaction, and the acoustics were much better, because it was designed for music.”
Manzarek hails these shows as a return to the group’s early days, when they used to play a small Los Angeles club called the London Fog. “I mean, talk about going back to basics. We used to do four sets a night at the London Fog, and we only had a small block of songs written up to that time. So we would do other people’s material. And in New York, it was like the same thing. We’ve got four shows to play here, two sets tonight, two sets tomorrow night. Let’s play whatever we want! Let’s just go!”
And go they did. Along with a mix of then-unheard new songs and old covers, the band also tapped into its 1967, self-titled debut, peppering the set lists with signature songs such as “Break On Through (To The Other Side),” “Soul Kitchen,” “The End,” and “Light My Fire,” The Doors’ first #1 hit.
For the final show of the Felt Forum stand, the band was joined onstage by two guests – The Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian (who played harmonica on the studio version of “Roadhouse Blues”) and drummer Dallas Taylor, who’d played on Crosby, Stills & Nash’s debut. Sebastian sat in for “Rock Me” and was joined by Taylor for “Going To N.Y. Blues” and “Maggie M’Gill.”
Fans will be blown away by the crisp sound found on LIVE IN NEW YORK. All four shows were mixed and mastered by the band’s longtime engineer, Bruce Botnick, who recorded a number of shows from The Doors’ 1970 tour on multi-track tape for the Absolutely Live album. While most of the music contained on LIVE IN NEW YORK is unreleased, a few songs (and portions of songs) surfaced in 1970 on Absolutely Live and in 1997 on The Doors Box Set.
Sadly, these shows represent The Doors’ final New York City performances with Morrison, who passed away July 3, 1971.
Prior to the release of LIVE IN NEW YORK, Rhino will release 180-gram vinyl versions of all six Doors studio albums on September 15. Previously available only in 2007’s The Doors Vinyl Box, original stereo mixes of The Doors, Strange Days, Waiting For The Sun, The Soft Parade, Morrison Hotel, and L.A. Woman will now be available individually at all vinyl retail outlets for a suggested list price of $24.98 each.
THE DOORS LIVE IN NEW YORK
Track Listing
Disc 1
January 17, 1970 (First Show)
1. Start Of Show
2. “Roadhouse Blues”
3. “Ship Of Fools”*
4. “Break On Through (To The Other Side)”
5. Tuning
6. “Peace Frog”
7. “Blue Sunday”
8. “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”
9. “Back Door Man”*
10. “Love Hides”*
11. “Five To One”*
12. Tuning/Breather
13. “Who Do You Love”
14. “Little Red Rooster”
15. “Money”
16. Tuning
17. “Light My Fire”*
18. More, More, More
19. “Soul Kitchen”*
20. End Of Show
Disc 2
January 17, 1970 (Second Show)
1. Start Show 2
2. Jim “How Ya Doing?”
3. “Roadhouse Blues”
4. “Break On Through (To The Other Side)”*
5. “Ship Of Fools”
6. “Crawling King Snake”
7. “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”
8. “Back Door Man”*
9. “Five To One”
10. Pretty Neat, Pretty Good
11. “Build Me A Woman”
12. Tuning/Breather
13. “Who Do You Love”*
14. Tuning/Breather
15. “Wild Child”*
16. Cheering/Tuning
17. “When The Music’s Over”
Disc 3
January 17, 1970 (Second Show) continued
1. Tuning/Breather
2. “Light My Fire”*
3. Hey, Mr. Light Man!
4. “Soul Kitchen”*
5. Jim’s Fish Joke
6. “The End”
7. End Of Show
Disc 4
January 18, 1970 (Third Show)
1. Start Show 3
2. “Roadhouse Blues”*
3. “Ship Of Fools”*
4. “Break On Through (To The Other Side)”*
5. Tuning/Breather
6. “Universal Mind”*
7. “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)” – False Start*
8. “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”*
9. “Back Door Man”*
10. “Five To One”
11. Tuning/Breather
12. “Moonlight Drive”
13. “Who Do You Love”*
14. Calling Out For Songs
15. “Money”*
16. Tuning/Breather
17. “Light My Fire”
18. More, More More
19. “When The Music’s Over”*
20. Good Night – End Show
Disc 5
January 18, 1970 (Fourth Show)
1. Start Show 4
2. “Roadhouse Blues”*
3. “Peace Frog”*
4. “Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)”*
5. “Back Door Man”
6. “Five To One”
7. We Have A Special Treat
8. “Celebration Of The Lizard”
9. Alright Let’s Boogie
10. “Build Me A Woman”
11. “When The Music’s Over”*
12. More, More, More
Disc 6
January 18, 1970 (Fourth Show) continued
1. “Soul Kitchen”*
2. For Fear Of Getting Too Patriotic
3. Petition The Lord With Prayer
4. “Light My Fire”
5. Only When The Moon Comes Out
6. “Close To You”
7. The Encore Begins
8. “Rock Me”*
9. What To Do Next?
10. “Going To N.Y. Blues”*
11. Tuning/Breather
12. “Maggie M’Gill”*
13. Tuning/Breather
14. “Gloria”*/End Of Show
*Previously unreleased
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