I think over the years I must have seen a couple of dozen Doors cover bands, some great and some awful, after all when it comes to cover bands The Doors are a sure-fire winner: great songs, great image and a frontman who had an abundance of charisma and who died way too young. Tonight is something different though we’re getting all ‘symphonic’…
The Doors music is nothing if not visceral and I’ve seen Heavy Metal covers of Doors songs and Country covers, a few years back Nigel Kennedy and Jaz Coleman recorded an orchestral album of Doors classics with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and I guess tonight we’re tripping into that kind of territory. Some of the Doors albums of course had string arrangements and I think that tonight those kind of moments like ‘Touch Me’ work best in this context.
Of course as a kid who grew up on The Doors I am incredibly hard to please, the first time I visited Los Angeles was on a self researched Doors pilgrimage where the visit was a chance to step back in time to haunts like the site of the old Electra Studios, Venice of course and Barney’s Beanery (and Jim’s booth), heck I even spent the night in the Motel room Jim Morrison lived in for a few years at The Alta Cienega (room 32) but his spirit never visited me.
Of course capturing that spirit is a good 50% of this show and i have to say that End Of Fashion’s Justin Burford out front on vocals excel;ed himself tonight as Mr Mojo Risin’. Vocally he had the timbre and depth down pat and whilst his spoken ‘Jim’ at times needed a minor polish,I feel I’m only being unfair as I’m so familiar with every nuance.
The crowd tonight was interesting too, I only spotted one Doors T-Shirt and only a handful of people younger than I and chatting to a few as many Symphony aficionados as Doors enthusiasts.
Tonight’s performance was rewarding and rich, bold and fun and just the sort of thing that I imagine Densmore and Manzarek would approve of, I’m not sure of Jim though, and I think old Robbie Kreiger might have wondered why there wasn’t room for a guitar in there at times, the horns did a wonderful job of filling in of course but I do think that ‘Roadhouse Blues’ without a guitar – the very soul of the song, was a step too far. Indeed if I could have changed one thing about tonight it would have been that song substituted for another.
The Doors music of course though has always been about performance,and the scope here really was breathtaking, and whilst the screens at the back of the stage counted us through the events of The Doors career against the broader events of the Sixties in the US, I felt a little disconnect in that the songs didn’t flow chronologically with that story.
The Doors of course were a band that threatened to change the world, a dangerous band, the sort of band that would have been shunned by Orchestra goers back in the day, tonight though all here were enthralled. Opening with ‘The Crystal Ship’ was a stoke of genius, one of Morrison’s most poetic lyrics it’s a song well suited to lush strings and brass , and as ‘Jim’ strides on stage there’s a real feeling of warmth and affection in the room. The first impression box is ticked well and truly,and whilst ‘Hello I love You’ is a similarly great choice to follow it does lose a little edge without those accents of guitar which ‘Light My Fire’ (appearing surprisingly early) gets away with almost shadowing the easy-listening 1968 José Feliciano take on the song. Somehow you imagine that the denizen’s of post war 50’s America would love this sound.
With a whiskey bottle prop to cling to ‘Jim’ ponders love before ‘Love her Madly’ really takes flight, wowing the crowd into clapping along before another ‘made for this kind of treatment‘ moment comes in ‘Waiting For the Sun’ which is swiftly followed by the most ‘produced’ of all Doors songs ‘Touch Me’ – it’s like the super sugary icing on the cake. In those three songs you have the magic of this night summed up and a great connection in that ‘Touch Me’ originally featured jazz saxophonist, Curtis Amy, who did that fabulous solo at the end. Here the PSO just run that to it’s rather grand and logical conclusion.
“People Are Strange sounds wonderful given a kind of ‘French cafe’ feel though I fear my least favourite moment is the treatment of ‘LA Woman’ where at times the orchestra almost swamps the vocal, and the songs real highs are subdued with horns that lack the bite of the aggressive guitar chords of the original. Glancing around though I fear I stand alone in my ignominy!
The spoken word ‘Lions in the Street’ is a wonderful and unexpected treat and ‘Not to Touch the Earth’ again well chosen and I love the souped-up ‘Five to One’ which although stripped of six string, sees the violin seeking to become fiddle! The epics of course were always going to sound interesting and the rain that precedes ‘Riders on the Storm’ is a nice echo, and whilst the dynamics of the song are transformed it sounds vibrant and fresh even if it does venture close to Disney at the mid-point before regaining directness and focus.
Sadly for me the one real misstep is the sanitised ‘Roadhouse Blues’ a song so dirty it seems so deflated tonight without the grit and grime of 50 plus years. For a moment I’m mesmerized by just how far away you can take a song from its spirit – from road song and rebellion to lounge room in an instant – we couldn’t be further from “waking up this morning and getting ourselves a beer”! The rest of the room of course ignores me and claps along, remaining enthralled for ‘Break on Through’ which closes the set proper. The last word of course goes to the epic ‘The End’ which is another magical interpretation of a song that broke so much ground when released.
Perth Symphony Orchestra were Rock Stars tonight. After tackling ‘Nirvana’ in their first Re-imagined concert taking on the greatest hits of one of the world’s most-loved bands is something you really do need to experience.
Images courtesy of Richard Jefferson
