THE DOORS LIVE IN ANN ARBOR: NOT JUST A FLOP

It is October 20, 1967, and not even a month has passed since the release of the Doors' wonderful second album, "Strange Days" (September 25, 1967).

The group was already famous thanks to the single "Light My Fire" and the first LP ("The Doors").

On the evening of October 20, the band played in Ann Arbor, Michigan, near Detroit. The venue was packed, and Jim Morrison arrived in really bad shape due to the large amount of alcohol he has consumed.

When the other three band members, Robby Krieger, John Densmore and Ray Manzarek, start the first song ("Soul Kitchen"), Morrison wasn’t on stage.

After a few minutes of waiting, marked by the musical figure of the electric organ that introduces the song, the singer wasn’t in dight yet. Then the band stopped the show, Morrison was found and brought in front of the crowd, then they started again with the first song.

Unfortunately, the singer was in no condition to perform, slurring incoherent words over the music stoically carried on by the other members of the band. Soon the audience started to complain, and several people began to leave.

Exasperated by the situation, the drummer and guitarist also left the stage, unwilling to continue under these conditions.

Manzarek, however, remained on stage with Morrison, picked up the electric guitar left by Krieger and tried to help Morrison sing with some blues chords (check out the infamous photo which picture this part of the concert!).

It was not the right night, and even then The Doors’ frontman could not recover that spark of lucidity which usually made his live performances great.

It all ended in disappointment from the audience and in a last attempt to play by the quartet. Anyway, at this point there were only a few people left in the room and that was it.

Despite the musical disaster, the Ann Arbor show remains a concert with a strong meaning that transcends Morrison's excesses.

Indeed, by stepping completely outside the box and eluding the audience's expectations, the frontman added a dimension of authenticity and transgressive originality to Rock music.

This factor remained a distinguishing characteristic of that musical genre from then on and constituted its flamboyant, provocative and rebellious side.

All this had also contributed to the myth of Jim Morrison's brilliant rebelliousness as well as to the fame he gained for undermining conformist rules that still surrounds him to this day.

This performance by The Doors, although not successful, also had another important effect on music history.

In fact, a 20-year-old boy named James Osterberg was in attendance on that confusing evening, and being fascinated by what he saw and heard he would form his own band a few months later.

His name is Iggy Pop, and the musical group he founded are The Stooges.

The Doors were able to capture people’s imagination with their art, even when their performance did not live up to their great abilities.

By inspiring a very good artist and creating symbolic paradigms still today inextricably linked with Rock music, in Ann Arbor The Doors, and Morrison in particular, made history once again.