So why is The Doors’ In Concert on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
It’s remarkable that The Celebration of the Lizard never appeared in full on a Doors studio album.
If that sentence makes any sense to you, it means you’re in the same neighborhood of Doors superfan-meets-super nerd that I live in.
“Not to Touch the Earth” was included on Waiting for the Sun, of course, and it’s produced well enough as is, but it loses so much of its strength and power when decoupled from the entirety of its epic musical… suite? Opus? Novella?
Let’s take a step back though, Part I: “Not to Touch the Earth” as single track is simply better – far superior, in fact – in the live form we get on In Concert…
Stepping back, Part II: In Concert is where we do get the full Celebration of the Lizard, and it’s glorious. I’ve heard several other live cuts of Celebration and this version is by far the best. It’s alive, absolutely alive here, and while Jim Morrison’s voice may not be at its very best at this latter stage of his all too brief career, the performance that comes through his vocals is very much Peak Morrison.
And it’s Peak Manzarek, Peak Krieger, Peak Densmore.
Now, it would be reasonable for you to ask, “Hey, what’s this Celebration of the Lizard thing all about, anyway?” And the answer is… eh, it’s complicated?
Here’s what Wikipedia says:
Composed as a series of poems, the piece includes both spoken verse and sung lyrics, musical sections, interpretive dance, audience reaction… and passages of allegorical storytelling, though the Doors often performed abridged renditions which omitted some or even most of these elements.
But I’d say the more honest answer is that it’s weird, jarring, freaky at times, beautiful at others, rockingly psychedelic, and overall somehow entertaining and even moving.
It’s not for everyone, but if you can hang with the ceremony, you might just break on through to the other side.
Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin
Stepping back, Part III: The live Doors record I grew up with was the 1991 double album In Concert, which folds in the Absolutely Live release along with tracks from Alive, She Cried and an iconic Hollywood Bowl show.
Celebration isn’t even my most favorite thing about In Concert. If I had to pick “one thing,” I’ll cheat and take two: the two-part assembly of the fun, satirical, and rocking “Dead Cats, Dead Rats” into the bluesy and loose as hell cut on The Doors’ very first single, “Break on Through” refashioned as “Break on Through #2.”
“Gloria” is a monster track, not to be missed. Van Morrison’s original is fine, but The Doors turn it into a carnal, swirling midnight ritual. The Ray–Robby groove is wild here, almost trance-like, with Jim riffing, moaning, teasing, pushing – locked in and commanding, one of those nights when everything aligned.
The cover version of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” is bluesy and terrific, while “Universal Mind” is mysterious and driving and lightly psychedelic.
“Close to You” is a rare Morrison-era track where we get Ray on lead vocals. It’s really fun and bluesy while also a helpful reminder that it took all four Doors working in harmony to conjure something that’s more than the sum of its parts.
In Concert closes with a delightful seven minutes-plus version of Soul Kitchen that feels as free and alive today as it did back in 1970. It also has some jazzy swing to it versus the studio version on The Doors debut album, and I love Morrison’s playful vocal arrangement.
By the time The Doors’ live album hit shelves in July 1970, The Doors were already a paradox. They were one of the biggest rock bands in America, but Morrison was in mid-unravel, reeling from his multiple arrests for indecency – stuff that would hardly raise eyebrows these days – but even more so by his deepening substance abuse.
Live albums were becoming a rite of passage (Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! for the Stones, Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys), and The Doors needed one too, both to stay relevant and to prove they could still deliver the goods on stage.
In Concert is a snapshot of history late in The Doors’ run: brilliantly messy at times, fronted by an iconic performer and a band capable of blowing the roof off even as the clock in the Soul Kitchen was ticking.
I’ve often thought about when and where I’d time travel in music history. With The Doors, the easy answer is the Whiskey during their house band era on the Sunset Strip.
But maybe it would have been even better to have caught them later in the career – one right around the time In Concert was recorded – when you just happened to catch Morrison on a “good night” and the band, sensing this and maybe hearing the clock ticking a bit, playing its ass off.
The Doors opening the American night for one of the final times they ever would.
A night where we all were doing time in the universal mind.
Some stats & info about The Doors – In Concert
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Psychedelic Rock, Blues Rock, SoCal Bands, Live Albums, Hard Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 2 out of 5 stars (!?)
- When was In Concert released? 1970
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #51 out of 1,000
The Doors’ In Concert on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Doors’ In Concert that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Not to touch the earth, not to see the sun, nothing left to do but run, run, run.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project..