THE DOORS AT "THE MATRIX": “MOONLIGHT DRIVE” IN MARCH 1967

 

The Doors' concerts at "The Matrix" in San Francisco in early March 1967 are one of the very rare recordings of what was happening in the group's music at that crucial time in their career.

In fact, here we find them on the eve of the recordings for the group's second album.

A month and a half later they would begin to record the musical ideas that would end up on the "Strange Days" LP (later released in September 1967).

Among the songs the band performed at the historic venue there was "Moonlight Drive”.

This Jim Morrison composition had been in The Doors' repertoire since the formation (with the arrival of Robby Krieger) of the final lineup in October-November 1965.

The song was recorded in the studio a few months after this live performance and was chosen to close the A-side of "Strange Days".

Here at "The Matrix" we get to hear an extended version of the song that stops shortly before the six minutes threshold.

It differs from the one on the record in at least three ways.

The first is the presence of the electric organ instead of the modified piano and the clavinet, the two keyboards played by Ray Manzarek on the album version.

Moreover, the keyboardist also built the bass line with his left hand on the Fender Rhodes piano bass, while on the album it was Doug Lubhan, hired temporarily as a session man, that played the electric bass.

The second aspect is the vocal support provided by Ray Manzarek himself to Morrison on most of the track.

The keyboardist made frequent vocal interventions, sometimes adding decorative phrases between verses of the lyrics (he often repeats "Goin' down"), sometimes doubling Morrison's main vocal line instead.

The third and final element that distinguishes this live version of "Moonlight Drive" are the verses added by Morrison and presumably improvised on stage.

In fact, before the last verse-rhythm sequence, he inserted some poetic phrases that gave continuity to what the singer narrates in the rest of the song.

In this way, he invites the listener to sink into the sea, which is the destination of the "Moonlight drive" evoked by the song's title.

Morrison called on the audience to dive deep into the sea that leads to a dimension different from the oppressive everyday life and the dull contemporary society.

In this new dimension, projected into our imagination by Morrison's additional verses, fish are friends, our eyes are made of coral, and the city is replaced by deep ocean water.

The purpose of this mystic trip under the waves is to discover a path other than conformity, one that frees us from external conditioning and leads us to be authentic and spontaneous.

This addition to the original lyrics alone is worth listening to "Moonlight Drive" live at "The Matrix".

The rest of the performance lives up to expectations, although a little less immediate, engaging and sparkling than the masterpiece we find on the "Strange Days" LP.