Ray Manzarek – The Doors Review
Anyone who knows me knows The Doors are (or were) my favourite band. I’ve got all the albums, T-shirts, read all the books, visited Jim’s grave, been in a Doors cover band and even got a tattoo of Jim Morrison on my arm! So I guess this gig like the previous 2 Doors gigs I’d seen could never have lived up to my expectations or memories, especially without Jim and Densmore. Their current tour seems to have been planned to coincide with the new Doors movie “When You’re Strange” which I’ve yet to see..
After a long, meandering (yeh, we got lost) walk to the new Grand Canal Theatre in Dublins refurbished docklands, we met with old friends from our gigging days and fellow members of our Doors Cover band “The End” bought a few ridiculously overpriced drinks and sat down in the very plush theatre to anticipate what promised to be something different – the Doors music accompanied by a 50 piece strong orchestra! I had a couple of well liked classical recordings featuring both Nigel Kennedy and George Winston so I knew it could work but it didn’t on this occasion.
About 10 seconds into the first song “Love Me Two Times” I turned to my friend and said, “this is going to be a long night”!I think maybe the playing of both Manzarek, Krieger and the rest of the band and the orchestra was accomplished but either the sound engineer, theatre designer or booking agent should be shot. For nearly the entire gig, except for parts where the band played quietly or not at all, I couldn’t hear the orchestra one bit. Couldn’t pick out the strings, wind, timpani, nothing…Manzarek’s keyboard and Krieger’s guitar hurt my ears and the stand in lead singer who was way too young and fit looking compared to the other old rockers, was just a screamer and regularly cocked up songs including one memorable occasion when he fell over a monitor!
The song choices saved the nght a little bit with some of the more obsure Doors songs getting an outing for once with songs from all 6 Doors studios albums. It seemed like a totally different gig after the interval, still with sound problems but the audience came to life dancing and singing along, with a little element of anarchy, Jim would have approved! I suspect some drugs were consumed during the break!
I’m still glad I went if only to see 2 of the surviving members of one of the world’s greatest and most influential rock bands but I’m done now..
Leon..
Here’s a video of the intro song, “Love Me 2 Times”:
Here’s some photos:
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Posted in Reviews on July 19th, 2010
Tags: grand canal theatre, ray manzarek, the doors
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